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MESSAGES. 



His charity was love, and love 
So strong that 'twas above 

Death's strength and all defection. 



Page 8. 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



In Rhyme and Story, 



REV, THOMAS a KEMPiS REILLY, O.P., S.T.L.. S.S.L.. 

PROFESSOR OF SACRED SCRIPTURE AT IMMACULATE 
CONCEPTION COLLEGE, WASHINGTON, D, C. 




PHILADELPHIA 
JOHN JOSEPH McVEY 
1911 




FEATEE V. F. C DANIEL, O.P., S.T.M. 
FEATEE J. A. McHUGH, O.P., S.T.L. 

If mprtmaiur : 

FEATEE M. L. HEAGAN, O.R, S.T.L., 

Prior Provineialis. 

3 mpttmatttr : 

* E. F. PBENDERGAST, 

Adm. PhiladelphUnsis. 



COPYBI@HT 
JOHN JOS. MoVEY 
1911 



u Melius est in via claudicare quam prosier viarn fortiter 
ambulare." — S. Aug. Serm. CXLI. 

It is better to go along the right path limping t than to walk 
straight and bravely on one that leads astray, 

St. Atjgxjstike. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

I. Preface ...... ix 

II. Charity (Poem) . 1 

III. Because I Love Him, . . . 10 

IV. Persuaded? 56 

V. Signs of the Times .... 85 

VI. History of Catholic Belief in the 

Immaculate Conception . . 99 

VII. Ambition (Poem) . , . 122 



7 



PREFACE, 



These Messages have been inspired by 
an ardent love of Truth, and it is a knowl- 
edge of Truth they are intended to convey. 
In their new and improved garb they are 
designed not so much to entertain, as to 
enlighten and inflame. " I am come to 
cast fire on the earth, 7 ' said He who is 
Truth and Life itself ; ' ' what will I, then, 
but that it be kindled? 1 If one spark of 
that fire yet scintillates in these cold pages, 
may it be fanned to a white heat by the 
reader's reflection, and end, with God's 
help, by consuming the stubble and the 
tares so frequently mixed with the wood, 
silver, and gold of man's moral and relig- 
ious prosperity. 

It is through the courtesy of " The 
Rosary Magazine " and " The Young 
Eagle " that the " Messages of Truth in 
Rhyme and Story " are now grouped to- 
gether and, with important additions, 
are sent on their missionary errand. 

1 Luke xii, 49. 
ix 



CHARITY. 



I. 

The pessimist, the optimist, 

The selfish man, the altruist, 

The critic small, th' indulgent man, — 

That dear and precious rarity! — 
Did meet one day beside the sea, 
A- wand 'ring meditatively, 
A peaceful youth of comely mien 

Endowed with holy charity. 

II. 

" Whence comest thou," the first began, 
" To stray along the glaring strand? 
From heav'n? If so, 'tis wondrous 
strange. 

A better land were erst thy range. 
Perchance, art from the nether world, 
By some capricious spirit hurled 
To earth again, in angel's form, 
More honest men to tempt and scorn? 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



hl 

' ' But no ! Thou 'rt still of flesh and bone, 
The fruit of dust and clay, and one 
Who, I perceive, art like the sea 
That flows, then ebbs, inconstantly. 
Oh, would that thou wert more robust, 
More virile, valiant, stern, and just!" 
The youth said nothing, — only smiled. 
He loved the cross, it made him mild. 

IV. 

Then spake the optimist in tone 
More cheering. " Fain," said he, " I own 
That fairer youth than thee to see 
Were pleasure ne'er accorded me. 
Pray, then, breathe forth thy dulcet voice 
My ears to charm, my soul rejoice. 
Too modest art thou for thy gifts ! 
Diffuse the good that so uplifts." 

V. 

The youth was silent still, and paused — 
" What have I, Lord, thou hast not caused 
And giv ? n to me to use and guard ? ' 9 
His soul in these communed with God, 
While outwardly, his features beamed 
With sweetness, and a heav'nly sheen 
Transfigured them beyond compare: 
God's spirit pure was breathing there. 



CHARITY 



VI. 

Then sudden thought his speech did start : 
" Kind Sir," he ventured, " bless thy 
heart ! 

No coldness can in thee have part. 

I would not wound thee, for my art 

Is one more gentle, one more wise, 

The first-begotten of the skies. 

I would not have it otherwise, 

For God my soul would then despise." 

VII. 

' 6 Queen charity hath taught me love 
Like that which angels have above, 
For thee and thine and all who strive 
By kindly words and deeds to drive 
Affection home to hearts of men — 
To draw them, rather, to the ken 
Of godlike things and saintliness 
By practicing sweet gentleness." 

VIII. 

Then did the selfish man exclaim: 
" Let's on! Such compliments are vain. 
The youth to us a stranger is, 
What know we, then, of him or his? 

3 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



Sir Pessimist may be as right 
As blander Optimist, whose sight 
Is always magnifying things, 
Whose pivot-tongue forever swings/' 

IX. 

Those were his words which, half-sup- 
pressed, 

"Were most devoid of tenderness. 
Impatience marked his features coarse. 
His eyes were turned aside, to force, 
If might be, from the comely youth, 
A straight dismissal which, forsooth, 
Would make his five companions see 
There's nothing sound in vanity. 

X. 

E'en now the youth was undisturbed. 
His eye had seen, his ear had heard, 
But 'twas not he had asked to stay 
The friends he met along the way. 
Another might be gratified 
To utter kindlier words. He sighed 
A prayer within his breast, unheard: 
"Dear Lord, enlarge a heart so shirred." 

XL 

The altruist in turn eschewed 
All bitterness and crabbed mood. 

4 



CHARITY 



6 6 Brave youth, " quoth he, "thou art most 
blest 

Thy tongue and heart to hold at rest 
While gossip surges round thee wild, 
Indeed, art thou of Truth the child. 
Could I but be as thou, my soul 
Would feel as though 'twere near its goal." 

XII. 

"Forsooth!" the critic volunteered, 
"Forsooth! If you were he," he sneered, 
"And we were you, and all men we," 
He thus went on triumphantly, 
"Your soul would then be at its goal, 
And so would ours, and so, the soul 
Of ev'ry man who lives and breathes, 
But, oh! that 'if — how vain it is!" 

XIII. 

He laughed, — but 'twas not heartily, 
'Twas superficial, and the glee 
He sought to show was not the kind 
To satisfy a noble mind. 
His mind was small, and so he ceased. 
Th' indulgent man, therefore, increased 
His zeal for righteousness and broke 
His list'ning silence. Thus he spoke: 

5 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



XIV. 

4 4 Kind friends, it grieves me sore to hear 
From lips familiar words that sear 

The heart like these. 
Why not with one another bear? 
Why not the harmless youth declare 
Like Him who came our souls to spare 

Until he sees 
That we, through sympathy for him, 
And love for all that is not sin 
Are broad enough good grace to win 

From God and man? 
The youth has shown his gentleness 
To be well nigh pure godliness, — 

Bless 'd be he then!" 

XV. 

In tears the meditative one 
Did soar aloft before God's throne. 
The angels, joying, hovered round, 
The saints were hushed by music's sound: 
"What goodness, Savior, hast thou placed 
Within this servant's firm embrace! 
Fast wedded, then, to it and thee 
Mayst thou him keep eternally." 

XVI. 

Ashamed, abashed, the thoughtless men 
Beheld the tears that preached to them, 

6 



CHARITY 



But heard no voice. They had not meant 
Affections tender, deep, and bent 
On loving all, — the good, the bad, 
The cheerful, melancholy, sad, — 
To bruise in such a heartless way. 
They but forget their words to weigh, 

XVII. 

And this the quiet youth perceived, 
Nor harbored he ill-will, nor grieved. 
J Twas God arranged the interview, 
What was there left for him to do? 
His sins had called for more than this. 
To think aught else were proud, amiss, 
Would make him like who falls and slips. 
Yet one last word escaped his lips, 

XVIII. 

"Kind Sirs, methinks the Wise Man said, 
In praising Wisdom, — you have read — 
That Wisdom takes the place of age 
In forming well the perfect sage. 1 
Gray hairs are not what Wisdom is 
Except when Wisdom makes them his. 
Then Wisdom doth to them impart 
A meaning deep, a noble art." 

1 "Venerable old age is not that of long time, nor counted 
by the number of years : but the understanding of a man is 
grey hairs. And a spotless life is old age." Wisdom, IV, 
8, 9. 

7 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



XIX. 

"Now Christ has taught that charity 
Is highest wisdom, and to be 

Like Christ is man's perfection. 
Christ was not gray, but Christ was wise, 
His charity bloomed in the skies 

And showed itself in action." 

XX. 

" 'Twas not pent up within his mind, 
'Twas not explained, nor hard to find, 

It needed no reflection. 
His charity was love, and love 
So strong that 'twas above 

Death's strength and all defection." 

XXI. 

The men passed on, the youth remained. 
A short "farewell," the word unfeigned, 
Did symbolize the peace that reigned 

Among those hearts, now blended. 
The youth was left alone once more, 
Again he walked along the shore, 
In contemplation evermore 

Desiring to be ended. 



8 



CHARITY 



XXII. 

The wavelets played more merrily, 
The sunbeams danced more cheerily, 
The wafting breeze refreshingly 

Did kiss his brow sweet-scented. 
God's angel watched him lovingly, 
God's mother smiled on him, for he 
From creatures was of ail most free 

And had the world transcended. 



9 



BECAUSE I LOVE HIM. 



AN APOLOGETIC STORY, FOUNDED ON FACT. 

Lorenzo was an Italian dentist. His 
first excursion to America had hardly en- 
riched his mind with favorable impres- 
sions concerning the Land of Liberty and 
its people. He had admired the skyscrap- 
ers that overlooked the harbor at New 
York, marveled at the miles of piering 
along the East River, and was rather dazed 
at the ceaseless traffic in the streets of 
Gotham, in the air, and on the waters 
roundabout. The suspension bridges had 
astonished him, and the army of active 
street cleaners, clad in garbs of white, 
seemed to indicate that the American sani- 
tary system was fast reaching perfection. 

But there were a great many things 
that he disliked. Every one was so pre- 
occupied with personal affairs that he 
seemed to scorn the convenience of the 
stranger. Of course, he excepted hotels, 
theatres, pullman cars and the like, where 
the traveler paid his way. In other 
places and circumstances he had often 

IQ 



BECAUSE I LOVE HIM 



been embarrassed, shoved aside, laughed 
and jeered at by the boys. Policemen to 
whom he had applied for information had 
been gruff and disrespectful. 

Such offensive treatment had hardly 
been deserved by the gentlemanly Lor- 
enzo. He took a manifest pride in having 
virtues quite contrary to those that flour- 
ished in the New World. He would fre- 
quently leave his dental chambers in Italy 
to aid itinerant strangers. He even 
deemed that aesthetic tastes rendered such 
acts of kindness imperative. But then, 
there is nothing aesthetic, nothing beauti- 
ful in America. Everything that is origi- 
nal there is useful, but not beautiful. He 
wondered that the statue of Liberty were 
not rather called Utility, for even liberty 
in America is servant to selfish utility and 
is for that reason aggressive. He himself 
had often suffered from its aggressiveness. 

But Lorenzo, although serious in all 
that he said, was only feeling his way. He 
had secrets to talk about and he wished to 
speak of them " to a clergyman, ' ' such as 
he recognized in Father Tinniens, his 
chance fellow passenger aboard an Eastern 
bound Atlantic liner. 

" My family, " he said to Father Tin- 

IX 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



niens, " are all Catholic and I used to be, 
but I am no longer so at heart. My wife 
and children are ignorant of this and I in- 
tend to leave them in that ignorance. It 
would be cruel to disabuse them of it. It 
seems to me that they are deceived in 
their religious convictions, but they reap 
so much consolation from them that I am 
not going to deprive them of it." The 
dentist added that he would fain share in 
the comforts of religion himself, but his 
mind was too well instructed to hold longer 
to the doctrines that fathered them. 

" Then you are not a Christian, Mr. 
Lorenzo? " ventured Father Tinniens. 

6 6 yes, ' ' he replied, 1 ' I am a Christian. 
I believe that Christ lived on earth, that 
He was an honest, upright man, a type of 
all virtue, and I cannot shut my eyes to the 
good He accomplished. The only thing I 
do not believe about Him, is that He is 
God." 

At this point the call for dinner inter- 
rupted the confidential talk. The new ac- 
quaintances agreed to meet again. 

II. 

Among the many friends of Lorenzo was 
a Spanish Doctor of Medicine, a graduate 

12 



BECAUSE I LOVE HIM 



of Pennsylvania University. At a dis- 
tance, he seemed to be running over with 
sparkling wit and humor, but " all is not 
gold that glitters. ' ' The physician learned 
from Lorenzo at dinner, that the little 
group of ecclesiastics with whom Father 
Tinniens was traveling, was not so unap- 
proachable as he had imagined. That 
afternoon he began to profit by the intelli- 
gence. Coming upon them unexpectedly, 
he surprised them with the exclamation: 
" What a fine pillow to sleep on!" 

He was in his shirtsleeves and he held 
at arm's length a finely-bound book of 
about the same dimensions as a small 
Douay Bible. He looked drowsy and had 
apparently been taking a nap on the gilt- 
edged volume. 

" What pillow is that?" asked one of 
the students. 

" Shakespeare," he replied. ' 6 Every 
one tells me to read Shakespeare in order 
to learn English, but Shakespeare is teach- 
ing me that English is one of the sleepiest 
of languages. Shakespeare would make a 
good drug." 

"Is that so? What part of Shakespeare 
are you reading?" 

" ' The Comedy of Errors,' and the big- 
13 



MESSAGES OP TRUTH 



gest error of all is that I began it and the 
next biggest is that I stuck to it till I fin- 
ished it." 

" But that was hardly an error/' said 
another of the students. 

" That depends on how you look at it," 
retorted the physician humorously, and, 
with a stout stretch of the arms, a yawn, 
and an aimless glance over the glistening 
waves, he stalked away as abruptly as he 
had come. 

III. 

The moment drew nigh for Father Tin- 
niens to treat with Lorenzo. He found the 
dentist taking a nap on the canvas-cover of 
one of the life-boats. At his approach, 
the latter awoke and, assuming a sitting 
posture, let his fashionably shod feet swing 
gently in the breeze, about on a level with 
Father Tinniens' nostrils. The Doctor did 
not mind that, neither did Father Tin- 
niens. Yet, if the two had exchanged 
places, Lorenzo might have regarded his 
companion as another specimen of Ameri- 
can rudeness. 

A few remarks were ventured about the 
pleasant voyage so rapidly nearing its end. 
Then Lorenzo observed: " I believe the 

14 



BECAUSE I LOVE HIM 



Catholic Church is in a flourishing condi- 
tion in your country ?" 

" Yes," answered Father Tinniens, " it 
is spreading gradually and meets with 
little resistance. ' 9 

" But is it as exclusive in the United 
States as elsewhere?" 

" That depends upon what you mean by 
exclusiveness, sir. The Catholic Church 
is essentially a liberal body seeking to be 
all to all, with a view to gaining all, Gen- 
tile as well as Jew. ' ' 

" Yes, but then it makes the acceptance 
of its doctrines an obligation, and that is a 
relic of Judaism. No one can be saved un- 
less he is a Eoman Catholic— as if that 
were a teaching of Christ." 

" And such, with your leave, I beg to 
maintain it is, sir, though you must not 
judge the idea too severely. The Catholic 
Church is that founded by Christ and 
preached by the Apostles whom He made 
His immediate representatives. 'He who 
hears you,' He said, 6 hears me, and he 
who despises you despises me.' The 
Apostles and Christ are one. Of course, 
that does not mean that every one who 
lives and dies in any other religious per- 
suasion is lost. There may be certain 

15 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



individuals who never suspect that they 
are astray, and Christ is too merciful to 
censure such on the score of having de- 
spised Him. Indeed, they might be seek- 
ing Him with all their hearts, and there- 
upon they become members of the soul of 
the Church." 

" The soul of the Church! Ah! I like 
that expression. It is liberal. It is so 
much like what Christ said of His true 
followers, that they were to worship 6 in 
spirit and in truth/ and that is the word 
that has convinced me that religious pro- 
fessions are more or less a humbug. It is 
the spirit that enlivens. The letter kills." 

" Assuredly, Doctor, no one can find 
fault with you so long as you quote the 
doctrine of Christ and St. Paul in their 
own words, but I wonder if it would as- 
tonish you to learn that you misconstrue 
their meaning?" 

"Misconstrue?" Lorenzo was amused 
at the expression. ' 6 That were impossible. 
Their words are too clear." 

6 ' Clear indeed they are, Doctor, but you 
are aware that isolated phrases are often 
misleading unless account is taken of the 
circumstances that gave them birth. For 
instance, a rebuke might be turned into an 

16 



BECAUSE I LOVE HIM 



encomium by leaving out a few negatives 
and disregarding its cause." 

" That may be, but I am not manipu- 
lating phraseology now. I am speaking 
straightforwardly what I believe to be 
true." 

" And I give you the credit for so doing. 
Sir, but let me ask you to think a moment 
over what you have said. You have 
branded religious profession a humbug, 
because, in your way of looking at it, an 
upright spirit is all that is needed." 

" Precisely, my reverend friend," 

Ai But do you really think that is what 
Christ and St. Paul taught?" 

" Certainly, only those great teachers 
put it in other words." 

" But let ns see," said Father Tinniens, 
" I never thought before that Christ had 
thrown to the winds the laws of love and 
piety taught by His heavenly Father." 

' 1 There you are with that Romish no- 
tion that Christ is the Son of God. You 
can never convince me on that score, my 
friend. That is one of the most ludicrous 
tenets of Christianity. I call it Ecmish 
because all who hold it are either followers 
of the Pope or have caught the fever from 
them." 

17 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



" Well, then, let that go for the mo- 
ment," urged Father Tinniens. 4 4 If Christ 
were not the Son of God, then He was a 
mere man, and anything He would teach 
contrary to the divine commandments 
would be null." 

" I suppose it would, " replied Lorenzo 
with a suppressed smile on his lips, such 
as would be prompted by the thought that 
Father Tinniens was something of a pe- 
dant, " but what then? You know I don't 
believe that half the precepts contained in 
the Bible are divine. Indeed, I think the 
Bible itself would be much improved if 
it were expurgated." 

" Well, let that. too. go for the present," 
persisted Father Tinniens. " You believe 
that there is a God. do you not?" 

" I would be foolish to doubt that," an- 
swered the Doctor. " I can never think 
of the beauties and the vastness of crea- 
tion without admiring the great First 
Cause that gave them being." 

"Very well, sir. Xow you must admit 
that if it is God Who has given us all we 
have, we must love Him in the degree in 
which He has done us good." 

" But do you think the Omnipotent God 
would put us under precept to do that? 

18 



BECAUSE I LOVE HIM 



He has no need of us. His own goodness 
and majesty suffice Him." 

""What yon say is true, Doctor. God has 
no need of us, but we have much need of 
Him, and if we do not worship Him as a 
Lord, we must at least love Him as a Bene- 
factor." 

" I trust you do not misunderstand me/' 
uttered Lorenzo. " I firmly believe that 
we should love God in a befitting way." 

"But is not God the author of our bodies 
as well as our souls? Has He not given us 
our all?" 

" Of course, and therefore we should 
recognize His goodness as Christ said, ' in 
spirit and in truth. ' 9 9 

" You are right, Doctor, but I dare say 
you put a wrong sense to those words. 
If God has given us our all, we must love 
Him accordingly, with our all, with our 
whole being. That is the only befitting 
way to thank Him, and that is what He has 
commanded us to do. That is also what 
Christ and St. Paul bade us to do, as you 
must remember, if you have read the Bible 
carefully. 9 9 

Lorenzo remembered well enough for, 
on his own avowal, he read the Bible with 
as much interest as his books on dentistry, 

19 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



notwithstanding his belief that certain 
parts of the Holy Book needed to be expur- 
gated. He was rather surprised, however, 
at observing that the two doctrines were in 
conflict, so in a half -reluctant tone, he asked 
Father Tinniens how he understood the 
worship of the spirit. 

"Well, sir," began the priest, "the 
words you refer to were spoken to the wo 
man of Samaria and were directed against 
the bare outward ceremonies that were en- 
acted at that time at Jerusalem, and on 
Mt. Gerizim where the Samaritans wor- 
shiped. Those ceremonies had been insti- 
tuted to bring hearts nearer to God, but 
the minds of the age strove constantly 
about the letter of the Law, forgetting en- 
tirely its inward spirit. You remember 
that Christ openly denounced these grow- 
ing evils more than once. They tended to 
make men too much like whitened sepul- 
chres full of dead men's bones. That is 
why Christ insisted, not on the suppres- 
sion of exterior religion, but on the neces- 
sity of making the spirit pervade all re- 
ligious action. He was only borrowing a 
figure from what we observe in daily life. 
A body without a soul is dead, and so, un- 
mixed outward religion is dead. The soul 

20 



BECAUSE I LOVE HIM 



is the life-giver, but at the same time it 
must have a body in which to act. Christ 
insisted emphatically on the spiritual part 
in worthy action, because that was most 
lamentably wanting in His time. On other 
occasions He spoke of the outer or bodily 
part." 

"You remember the 'city on the moun- 
tain' that could not be hid, the lighted 
candle that would foolishly be put under 
a bushel, the burning lamps that His fol- 
lowers were to hold in their hands, that 
men might see their good works and glorify 
their 6 Father Who is in heaven. 9 All these 
show that if Christ spoke only of the spir- 
itual side of our obligations towards God 
to the woman of Samaria, it was far from 
His mind to confine the acquittal of those 
obligations solely to the spirit. The spirit 
may go astray while the outward man per- 
forms the works of righteousness, but if 
the spirit be right, all else will be correct. 
Such was Christ's meaning and such was 
the meaning of St. Paul, and they showed 
by their lives the signification of their 
words. They both adored the Father ' in 
spirit and in truth/ They both observed 
the letter, and Christ even recommended 
the letter when it was possible to observe 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



it. ' The Pharisees, ' He said, ' have sat 
in the chair of Moses. According to their 
words, do ye, but according to their works, 
do ye not.' " 

Lorenzo felt disposed to interrupt this 
piece of sermonizing from time to time, 
but Father Tinniens took no notice of 'us 
apparent uneasiness, for each interruption 
would have meant a digression. At length 
the Doctor grew more and more serious, 
pensive even, and after Father Tinniens 
had ended his little talk, he said : 

" Well, I never thought of that before. 
If I could see everything in religion that 
way, I think I would become an out-and- 
out Christian, but I know it is impossible." 

"Do not be too sure," Father Tin- 
niens warned him. "As long as you have 
doubts look for the truth and prepare 
yourself to accept it whencesoever it may 
come. If you do all that is in your power 
to find the truth, God will enlighten you, 
for although He has no need of you nor 
any of us, He is full of mercy and tender 
compassion. He will hearken to our peti- 
tions as to those of dear children." 

" That is what I have always wanted to 
believe," said Lorenzo, as he got down 
from the boat, " but God is too far above 

22 



BECAUSE I LOVE HIM 



us, He seems almost unreachable. How- 
ever, good-bye for the present. I thank 
you and I hope we shall meet again. ? ' 

At this the doubting man walked away, 
and Father Tinniens began to wonder if 
his heart were really changed. 

IV. 

That evening there was a dance on the 
upper deck. It had been arranged by the 
Captain as a final reunion, for on the mor- 
row many of the passengers were to disem- 
bark at Gibraltar. The outer side of the 
broad deck had been enclosed with colored 
bunting, and the floor, always clean and 
white, had been waxed. The flags of many 
nations were displayed along either side 
while Japanese lanterns were suspended 
in odd designs overhead. The orchestra 
was in position and was inviting the dan- 
cers by playing national airs, interrupting 
them now and then with an enticing waltz 
or schottische. Couple after couple ap- 
peared and finally to the apparent satis- 
faction of all, Lorenzo came. He was at- 
tired in evening dress and led by the arm, 
not a companion of the fairer sex, but a 
young man whose raiment ignored the 
mode, and who was traveling second-class, 

2$ 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



Father Tinniens was secretly observing 
the event through an opening in the bunt- 
ing. He grew curious as he perceived Lo- 
renzo introducing the young man to num- 
erous acquaintances, but, as the day was 
far advanced, he withdrew to recite a part 
of the Breviary. 

On the deck below he found a secluded 
spot, with no one near save a dark figure 
which was leaning over the rail a few feet 
away, apparently intent orr the noisy re- 
joicings of the steerage passengers below. 
The latter were eighteen hundred in num- 
ber — all bound for sunny Italy. It seemed 
that the whole multitude were shouting, 
singing, and playing, altogether. To 
Father Tinniens it was a good suggestion 
of Babel in confusion ; for the singing was 
without harmony and was produced from 
parched throats by hoarse voices, the re- 
sult of endless repetitions of the same pro- 
gram night after night. A few shrill 
whistles, and improvised tin instruments 
answered for an orchestra, while the points 
of least resistance in the dense crowd de- 
termined the line of march for a disorderly 
and promiscuous procession of old and 
young. There was nothing to gratify aes- 
thetic tastes in the performances, yet the 

S4 



BECAUSE I LOVE HIM 



scene was interesting. It showed harm- 
less, unenvious human nature finding inno- 
cent joys and diversion in the most un- 
toward circumstances of hardship and 
poverty. 

There, with no other light than that of 
the silvery moon and the obscure rays of 
a huge, smoky lantern that swung over- 
head, those nearly two thousand souls 
swayed gently back and forth, and up and 
down, as the ship breasted the great waves, 
seemingly without the slightest care or 
solicitude. It was an impressively weird 
sight, one that appealed to the better in- 
stincts of the observer and elicited more 
tender sympathy than the imposing array 
of fashion and social accomplishments in 
the improvised ball-room above. 

"Whether the silent stranger was simi- 
larly impressed, remains to be told. Father 
Tinniens did not approach him, but when 
satisfied with viewing the motley though 
happy crowd, he seated himself on one of 
the benches near by and completed the 
day's Office. 

As Father Tinniens arose from his place, 
the strange figure opposite stood erect, 

m 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



turned towards him, and, after a mo- 
mentary pause, began to walk away. Then 
suddenly stopping, as though to bethink 
himself of an object forgotten, he east a 
glance at Father Tinniens and without 
further ado, exclaimed: 

' ' I can always tell you and yours by the 
book you carry. ' 9 

Father Tinniens recognized the voice. 
It was that of Fernandez, the Spaniard. 
So he replied in a tone of amusement: 

"You have wonderful insight, sir." 

" How many hours have you wasted on 
the Breviary to-day?" asked the physi- 
cian. 

" None, I hope," responded the priest. 
" Time thus spent is hardly wasted." 

" But I think the 6 Comedy of Errors ' 
would do you more good. If you didn't 
like it, you could at least get a good sleep 
on the head of it." 

" But I was not born to sleep," retorted 
the priest, whereupon the Spaniard, not 
having a ready answer, walked away. 

Father Tinniens was far from thinking 
that he had embarrassed the voluble phy- 
sician. A man endowed with such glib- 
ness is scarcely capable of confusion. It is 
only a question of opportunity with him 

26 



BECAUSE I LOVE HIM 



as to whether lie storms or not, and when 
he does so, one may expect dews or fogs, 
sunshowers or tornadoes in any season. 

After leisurely promenading on the va- 
cated deck, Father Tinniens went to join 
his companions on the deck above, opposite 
the " ball-room." He found them earn- 
estly engaged in a discussion which one 
voice was evidently trying to monopolize. 

" I am as virtuous as any man," were 
the first words that reached his ears. " I 
never drink, nor indulge in profane lan- 
guage. I never dance — that's why I'm 
going about alone to-night — I don't be- 
lieve in dancing. I'd join that bellowing 
procession of bears down-stairs first. I 
try to live according to my conscience, and 
that is enough for me. Besides, I've done 
a great deal of good for humanity since I 
became a doctor, more perhaps than a 
dozen priests." It was Fernandez who 
was raving. His last vexing remark caused 
the priest to withdraw for a while longer. 

VI. 

At that moment the dancing seemed to 
have ceased, and a pathetic melody was 
being sung by a rich, resonant, male voice. 
Father Tinniens drew near to appreciate 

27 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



the selection the better. What was his 
surprise on reaching his former place of 
observation to learn that it was Lorenzo's 
friend who was entertaining the dancers 
at the invitation of the dentist, and how 
his heart throbbed with sympathy as he 
reflected on the kindness of the man who 
had devised this unwonted plan, to bring 
joy and happiness to a poor traveler! He 
could not help contrasting such philan- 
thropy with the vain, proud, and overbear- 
ing spirit of the physician. 

As the dancing was resumed, Father Tin- 
niens sought his companions once more. 
He was not long in learning that the dis- 
cussion, instead of abating, had become 
more heated and had taken a different 
trend. 

"Bishops! Bishops!" were the first 
words that grated on his ears. "Bishops! 
Bishops are good money-makers. If I 
wanted to get rich, I'd become a bishop 
right away." 

The priest approached stealthily and 
took a seat slightly behind the physician 
and in full view of the students. The 
former, unaware of his presence, continued 
Ms tirade and ended by extending his cal- 
umnies to every one connected with the 

38 



BECAUSE I LOVE HIM 



hierarchy. He then began to compassion- 
ate the " young men " who little knew of 
the degeneracy attaching to the Catholic 
clergy in general. " Oh, I admire yon 
gentlemen ? ?? he said, " I admire yon. I 
was once like yon, but I changed before it 
got too late." 

This language disgusted O'Brien, and 
the fervent cleric asked the Spaniard to 
specify in plain terms some of the charges 
he would bring against the clergy, ' 6 "What 
makes you think, for instance, that bishops 
are so mercenary? " 

" My personal experience/' was the re- 
ply. " When I was married I had to pay a 
priest for marrying me and then the bishop 
for a dispensation— and a fat sum it was, 
too— as if that little pope could have pre= 
vented me from marrving unless I paid 
him!" 

" If you had to pay for a dispensation/ ' 
chimed in O'Brien, " it was because you 
could not obey some law of the Cnurch, and 
the bishop had a right to what he asked, 
for he has to guard the laws." 

" Fine answer!" said Fernandez, 
"you're learning the trade young." 

"There's no trade in that, sir," rejoin- 
ed O'Brien somewhat vexed. 

29 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



' ' Not at all ! ' ' broke in Father Tinniens 
across the physician's shoulder. The latter 
turned around in astonishment. " If the 
bishop were allowed to keep that money, 
you would have some occasion for blaming 
him, but he is not. The money he received 
from you, he had to give to the poor, and 
if you begrudge him what you gave, you 
begrudge it to the poor as well." 

" Mo-mo-more fine talk!" stuttered the 
Spaniard as he tried to gather his scat- 
tered wits together. " I expected that 
from you, because you are a priest." 

" That is what my collar stands for," 
said Father Tinniens, whereupon the floun- 
dering physician suddenly braced himself 
up, turned his back to Father Tinniens, 
and began to make it clear to the students 
that he was done with priests. 

" The priests are as avaricious as the 
bishops, and they do more harm. There 
are more of them and they know how to 
gain their own ends. They can't see bad 
enough before their eyes. They must hear 
people's secrets, because, they say, 
thoughts are sins and they alone can for- 
give them — as if a thought could be a sin ! ' ' 

"But who says that every thought is 
a sin?" exclaimed Casey in indignation. 

30 



BECAUSE I LOVE HIM 



• • Priests ! Priests ! AYho else ! ' ' 

" Beg your pardon," Father Tinniens 
made bold to say. " Only bad thoughts 
are sins and without bad thoughts there 
would never be bad actions," 

" Bosh!*' exclaimed the Spaniard, re- 
fusing to look at the priest. 

" Keep cool a moment." the latter bade 
him. * 6 Do yon believe there is any dif- 
ference between a man and a beast!" 

" Well, I surely don't put myself on a 
level with a beast, although my ancestors 
might have been less fortunate. I would- 
n't be surprised if many of them were 
chimpanzees." 

" Perhaps they were," admitted Father 
Tinniens. Ci but what makes you superior 
to them?" 

" "Why. my education, my intelligence, 
inquisitive friend. See there! You priests 
always need to be instructed." 

Fernandez spoke these last words across 
his shoulder, so the priest, in order to 
spare him future inconvenience, changed 
his position in the rear for one directly in 
front. AVhile doing so he answered: 

" Of course we are not all-knowing nor 
infallible, but we feel quite sure that if a 
man's intelligence is more noble than his 

31 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



body, the acts of the intelligence are better 
than those of the body, if they are good; 
and worse, if they are bad.' 5 

" Oh! you want to say that a man with 
a bad thought is worse than a man who 
kills his friend." 

' ' Not at all, sir, for the man who wil- 
fully kills his friend has bad thoughts, and 
a will of the worst kind, And it is the 
thought and the will that make the act 
bad." 

" Oh ? I see! I may kill men by the hun- 
dred so long as I don't think of it!" 

" But you don't imagine that you would 
be able to do that, sir, except in a dream 
or when you were half-mad. But of course 
I was not talking about madmen. I am 
speaking about men in their senses, I don't 
think you would hold a man guilty of mur- 
der, who would kill his friend through 
sheer accident as, for instance, in pointing 
a gun without knowing it was loaded or in 
missing his aim on a hunt. It is only if 
he intended to kill, that you could brand 
him as a murderer, and the intent to kill is 
nothing more than a bad thought and a bad 
will working together. Only in cases like 
that are the bad thoughts sins. They be- 
come sins just as soon as the will consents 

32 



BECAUSE I LOVE HIM 



to them, even though no action follows ; but 
before the will consents, they are not sins 
at all." 

" Oh, you have to dabble with thoughts 
and talk that way because you hear con- 
fessions ! I have my own ideas about con- 
fession and I tell you now I don't believe 
in it. My wife wanted to go to confession 
every week after our marriage, but I put 
a stop to it. I just said to her, 'Look here ; 
you keep away from those priests. If you 
want to go to confession, 111 be your con- 
fessor, and no one else.' She obeyed." 

" But what right had you to interfere 
with the religious practices of your wife?" 

" All the right in the world. I'm her 
husband. ' ' 

6 6 But does that entitle you to refuse her 
a liberty that you guard for yourself?" 

" What liberty is that?" * 

" The liberty to live according to one's 
conscience. I heard you boast a few min- 
utes ago that you refrained from every- 
thing that was bad, and that you did a 
great deal of good, merely because your 
conscience bade you act that way. Now, if 
your wife's conscience told her that she 
should not stay away from Mass on Sun- 
day, or that she should go to confession 

33 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



from time to time, why did you not allow 
her to follow it f " 

" Simply because I wanted to cure her, 
and I've done so. She keeps away from 
church and priests now better than I do. 
Why, if I had not begun to educate her at 
once, she would have been preparing fish 
dinners for me every Friday and quoting 
the infallible Pope to me at every meal. 
Deliver me from a wife who would think 
that meat is poison on Friday or who be- 
lieves in a Pope. ' ' 

The students could stand this no longer, 
so Miillahy broke out: 

" Who says that meat is poison on Fri- 
day?" and O'Brien, exclaimed, "An in- 
fallible husband is worse than an in- 
fallible Pope!" At this he got up and 
walked away. Mullahy now felt free to 
venture a pious explanation of the weekly 
abstinence. "If we abstain from meat 
on Friday, it is to honor our Saviour Who 
died for us that day." 

" But you have to abstain from it," in- 
sisted the Spaniard. "You'd commit a sin 
if you didn't, and then you'd have to go to 
a priest to be absolved." 

These last words were added in tones 
of mockery and the zealous student, all the 
more provoked, retorted: 

34 



BECAUSE I LOVE HIM 



" Yes, we'd commit a sin if we didn't, 
because we gave our word the day we were 
baptized, that we would obey the Church 
and all her commandments, and it would 
be dishonorable, were we to go back on 
such a solemn promise." 

The words contained a strong hint, and 
the little party felt like applauding, for 
they had more than once surmised, now 
they even felt sure, that the self-opinion- 
ated Spaniard was a pervert from the 
faith. The words were grasped in their 
full significance, though Fernandez tried 
to appear undaunted. In a supreme effort 
to clear himself, he shrugged his shoulders, 
arose quickly, and with arrogant, dashing 
boldness, exclaimed in feigned disgust : 

' 6 Womanish ! womanish ! Why don 't 
you become men? Why aren't you up-to- 
date? You needn't think that I believe in 
the Church, nor in Christ either — " 

" Then it's not hard to see why you 
don't believe in the Pope," interrupted 
Father Tinniens. But the Spaniard con- 
tinued almost in a frenzy: 

" Christ was a good man like myself 
and many others who try to do what they 
think is right, but that's all. He couldn't 
have been God, because there is no God. 

35 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



All this talk about God, the Church, and 
the Pope is sheer priestcraft and I've done 
with it." 

Father Tinniens was watching his 
chance to deal a final blow, but the phy- 
sican was too enraged at the moment. So 
the priest contented himself with demand- 
ing: 

6 ' Priestcraft ! What do yon mean by 
that!" 

4 ' It's a compound of fables and mir- 
acles, labeled ' faith,' " continued the 
Doctor. " Everything is faith! faith! 
faith! and when you ask what faith is they 
tell you ' it's what you must believe,' and 
when you ask, ' why am I to believe it,' 
they answer simply, ' you must.' It's a 
thing you can't see. It's a thing you can't 
prove, so you must shut your eyes and 
stop up your ears, and bow your head and 
say, ' Amen, I believe.' That's what faith 
is and that's what I call priestcraft. I 
never believed in it and I never will. I 
only believe what I can see." 

" Whatever may be your ideas about 
priestcraft," urged the priest, " you are 
certainly wrong in saying that faith must 
be accepted simply because it must. We 
believe what faith teaches, because it is 

36 



BECAUSE I LOVE HIM 



God, Who taught it to us, and we do not 
need faith to tell us there is a God. If 
every picture tells of an artist, if every 
house of a builder, then the universe and 
its beauties bespeak a Creator, independ- 
ently of faith." 

" Don't think I'm going to swallow that, 
my friend. You talk about God the same 
way that you talk about faith. You say 
that God made Himself — as if there were 
anything more absurd!" 

' 6 No, we do not say that God made Him- 
self," persisted the priest. " He had no 
. need to be made. He always was and never 
began to be. If that were not so, there 
would be no God, no world, no Church to 
sneer at, no self-sufficient scoffers, and no 
atheists to arrogate to themselves a greater 
than Papal infallibility." 

The physican calmed slightly at the re- 
mark and said in an apologetic, though 
slightly feverish, manner: 

" Beg your pardon, my friends, if I talk 
a little hurriedly at times. I admire you, 
every one of you, but I can't help pitying 
such fine young men who consent to bind 
themselves down to such an unworthy — " 

" Enough!" interrupted Father Tin- 
niens. " Your sympathy is uncalled for, 

37 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



and will not be appreciated. It is useless 
to apologize for the insults you have heap- 
ed upon us and upon the Church. The 
Church and we are one, and your admira- 
tion for us personally, counts for noth- 
ing. ' ' 

66 But I did not mean — " 

" It is not for us to bother about what 
you meant, if you said the contrary. 
Friendly thoughts could hardly have been 
clothed in such unfriendly language. If 
you really wish to regain the favor you 
have lost, sir, the most effectual way to 
do so is to leave us in quiet, as you found 
us. That is the onlv apologv we will ac- 
cept." 

The physician, for the moment crest- 
fallen, and once more silenced, retired for 
the night. 

VII. 

It was during the concert the following 
morning that Father Tinniens and Lorenzo 
found themselves side by side. Both ap- 
preciated good music and had accordingly 
been present at the daily selections given 
by the band. This morning, however, Lo- 
renzo seemed to grow indifferent as the 
program advanced, and at his suggestion, 

38 



BECAUSE I LOVE HIM 



the two acquaintances withdrew to the li- 
brary. 

While passing along the deck, they en- 
countered Fernandez. He was taking his 
customary morning walk, and was, as he 
said, " looking for distractions from the 
monotonous music." He was growing 
weary of listening to such unaccomplished 
musicians " who reminded him always of 
the beastly performances of the steerage 
passengers that had so often grated on his 
ears from below." Lorenzo took excep- 
tion to the word " beastly." He remark- 
ed that although the performances were 
crude and ill-suited to his tastes person- 
ally, his mind was broad enough to con- 
sider the limited education of the perform^ 
ers, He took pleasure in the reflection that 
persons in such circumstances could devise 
such a variety of ways to enjoy them- 
selves. After all, he thought that men in 
all conditions of life were made to be happy 
and he had often envied the poor whose 
simplicity enabled them to derive so much 
pleasure from such scanty opportunities. 

Fernandez was slightly abashed, not so 
much by the reproof, as by the nearness 
of Father Tinniens, to whom Lorenzo ad- 
dressed his remarks. Bracing himself up, 

39 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



however, according to his wont, he 
branched off in desultory fashion to 
other matters and departed without bring- 
ing any of his disconnected chatterings to 
a practical issue. 

As Lorenzo and the young priest seated 
themselves in the library, the former ob- 
served that he had been greatly disap- 
pointed in his first apreciation of the Span- 
iard. Having heard that he was a physi- 
cian, a graduate from one of the leading 
American universities, he thought that the 
man was at least cultured, but the past 
week's experience had taught him that his 
new acquaintance was prone to trifling, 
precipitate in behavior, and extremely 
superficial. Father Tinniens, recalling 
the declamations of the previous evening, 
might have consented to all three epithets, 
but he satisfied himself with observing 
that Fernandez professed to be an atheist. 

" That would not surprise me," said the 
dentist. ' 6 He is a man who does not think. 
He does not know how to reason. I even 
doubt that he can be a good physician. He 
is hardly serious enough about serious 
things.' ' 

" But do you really think he is an athe- 
ist at heart?" asked the priest, more de- 

40 



BECAUSE I LOVE HIM 



sirous of fixing the dentist's mind upon its 
own difficulties, than upon the butterfly 
maneuverings of the physician. 

" Well, that is another question," an- 
swered Lorenzo. " I think that an athe- 
ist, if there can be such a thing, is an in- 
grate of the worst type. Now, men like 
the physician are hardly capable of doing 
anything very good or very bad, and my 
candid opinion is that our friend talks a 
great deal just for the sake of talking niid 
that he has no intimate convictions of his 
own. 9 9 

" But do you really doubt that there can 
be full-fledged atheists?" 

6 6 To say the least, I have never met any 
though I have traveled a great deal. Those 
who claim they are atheists have either 
corrupt notions of morality and so try to 
forget there is a God, or they have a mor 
bid passion for views and actions that 
startle. And with these I think that athe- 
ism is a disease rather than a conviction, 
for they can never discuss their position 
intelligibly. 9 9 

"I have always thought that way," said 
Father Tinniens striving to conceal a grow- 
ing impatience to have Lorenzo talk about 
his own case, " and that is why I experi- 

41 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 

enced a decided pleasure yesterday when 
you informed me that you were far from 
denying there is a God, and equally far 
from denying His absolute perfection.'' 

' 6 Oh, indeed," said Lorenzo in surprise, 
u I am as free from that error as I am 
from the opposite one that goes to make 
God too human." 

"Too human!" remarked the priest, 
glad that the trend of the conversation had 
become so pronounced. " You surely do 
not think there are many anthropomor- 
phists nowadays?" 

" That may be so, but there are some 
very popular Christian beliefs that ap- 
proach the old error very closely." 

" What beliefs may those be?" inquir- 
ed the priest. 

" Well, I will tell you," continued the 
dentist, " for it is my inability to consent 
to them that makes me so different from 
my family. They believe them all, but I 
cannot. I cannot see, for instance, how 
Christ was God. For me, he seems to have 
been an ideal, an upright man, but not 
God, In picturing him as God, his dis- 
ciples erred. They had been promised 
great power and success in the execution 
of their mission. They realized that sue- 

42 



BECAUSE I LOVE HIM 



cess, and in the fervor of their imagina- 
tion they exalted their leader to the high- 
est. They called him God. It was the 
mistake common to all ancient peoples, 
that they fell into. Their prestige was that 
of their leader, and after the leader's 
death, his renown depended on their suc- 
cess. That is why, in their simplicity, they 
spoke ridiculously of him. They bestowed 
upon him praise so exaggerated that it 
amounted to absurdity. My God could not 
have lowered Himself to such a degree as 
to become man. He is too infinite, too im- 
mense, to imprison Himself in the body of 
a babe. He is too majestic, too holy, too 
glorious, to close Himself up in a womb, 
to mix Himself up with flesh and blood. 
Besides, what reason had God for becom- 
ing man? He had no need of us and we 
are too insignificant to call for such hu- 
miliation on His part." Lorenzo grew 
eloquent at this effusion and would have 
gone on for some time, if Father Tinniens 
had not interrupted him. 

" I appreciate your doubts perfectly," 
said the priest. "They center around 
the belief that Christ was God. Let us 
consider this first, Now — " 

" But you see — 99 

43 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



" Indeed^ you have plenty of others, 
but we must take them one by one, or end 
by talking to the wind. You have said 
that Christ was an honest, upright and 
noble man, have you not ? 9 9 

" Certainly. It would be hard to deny 
that. Christ is the embodiment of all pos- 
sible human perfection. He was a gift 
of God to the race. I love Him because He 
was so good and because He did so much 
to make men better. But — " 

"Sir," interrupted the priest once more, 
" I believe you are really sincere. Now 
let me ask you, what is your authority for 
believing such sublime things of Christ V 9 

The dentist hesitated. 

" I dare say there is only one on which 
you can depend and that is the New Tes- 
tament. There you have several descrip- 
tions of Christ just as you understand 
Him. Now tell me frankly, if you accept 
the authority of Sts. Matthew, Mark, Luke, 
John and Paul when they speak in such 
glowing terms of their human Master, why 
you do not grant them the same authority 
when they say that He was G-od?" 

" Why? Because all parts of their writ- 
ings are not equally reliable. Some are 
sound, but others are apocryphal. Take, 

44 



BECAUSE I LOVE HIM 



for example, the cursing of the fig tree. 
One Evangelist says that Christ cursed 
the fig tree because it bore no fruit, and he 
adds that it was not the season to bear. 
Why! The foolishness! The ignorance 
of that apostle to say that my all- wise 
God would curse a fig tree because it did 
not bear figs out of season! As if I would 
kill a baby because it could not work. That 
is the kind of ignorance that led those poor 
fishermen to think that Christ was God." 

" But the story of the fig tree hardly 
counts here," urged Father Tinniens. 
" Christ, or any other man, might have 
cut down the fig tree, if He had wished to. 
The tree, unlike the helpless babe, pos- 
sessed no rights to live. No injustice was 
done to it. Christ merely chose to use His 
free will in disposing of the tree. He 
might have hewn it to the ground at once, 
but He preferred to let it stand and wither 
away. ' ' 

" For that reason the Sonship of God 
can stand no comparison with the fig- 
tree. The apostles did not merely say 
that Christ was God. They put the af- 
firmation in Christ's own mouth. Christ 
Himself virtually said: 1 I am the Son of 
God.' Now since you honor Christ as a 
sincere and honest man, you will have to 

45 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



admit that He was convinced that He was 
God." 

At this point the Spaniard, who had 
caught a few words while passing the win- 
dow, laughed in a mocking strain, but the 
dentist, heedless of the ungentlemanly act, 
exclaimed : 

u l\ T o! no ! no ! By calling Himself the 
Son of God, Christ merely meant that He 
was the creature of an infinitely good God, 
just as yon and I and all Christians may 
style ourselves the sons of God." 

" Ah! You mean that Christ spoke fig- 
uratively. ' ' 

' ' Yes ; certainly ; just as He compared 
Himself to a vine, the light of the world, 
and other similar objects. No one im- 
agines that Christ Who was wiser than Sol- 
omon would speak literally in such terms." 

" But there is this difference between 
the comparisons you have referred to and 
Christ's divine Sonship. When Christ 
called Himself a light and a vine, it is clear 
that He could not have meant that He was 
a fiery flame or a woody growth springing 
from a root and bracing itself up with ten- 
drils. But when He proclaimed Himself 
to be the Son of God, He obviously meant 
that He was really begotten of God and 
* 46 



BECAUSE I LOVE HIM 



was therefore God like His heavenly 
Father. That is what he was understood 
to say by the Pharisees and the people at 
large. That is ' the blasphemy ' He ut- 
tered before the high priest during His 
trial. That is why He was persecuted and 
finally put to death. If He did not mean 
that He was the real and natural Son of 
God, there would have been no reason for 
His condemnation. The Apostles and the 
Jews themselves were the sons of God in 
the sense which you understand. How 
then could the latter who made up the 
rabble at Pilate's judgment-place, clamor 
for Christ's death, unless He claimed to 
be the Son of God with a Sonship superior 
to theirs? Or if they arose against Him, 
why did they not crucify the Apostles with 
Him?" 

It was a new side of the question which 
had never before dawned on Lorenzo. It 
made him think. He was rather stunned, 
but still he ventured: " Ah! but it is so 
ridiculous that my God of majesty should 
have become a man, so incredible that He 
should have subjected Himself to the many 
inconveniences of human nature. No ! It 
cannot be ! How — ' ' 

"One moment, sir. Let us not stop 

47 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



here. All that we need do for the present 
is to acknowledge that Christ claimed to 
be the Son of God. The assertion of that 
claim is a historical fact attested by sev- 
eral who saw Him die rather than retract 
it. If yon insist only on the ridiculousness 
of such a claim, I beg yon to pardon me if 
I ask yon a few questions about the senti- 
ments that make you do so. You certainly 
believe in God, as you have already told 
me." 

6 ' Indeed, from the bottom of my heart 
I believe in the great, grand God, the 
First Cause, and the abyss of all perfec- 
tions." 

" And you believe that He can do all 
things?" 

"Most assuredly. He created this world 
and He could make millions of others thou- 
sands of times larger than this grain of 
sand on which we live. So vast is He." 

" Very well. Then do you not believe 
that if God chose to do so, He could be- 
come man?" 

" Ah! But He has no need of doing 
that. He is too great to need us and we are 
too vile for Him to become like us." 

" I honor these reasons for the present, 
sir, but I beg you to answer the query di- 

48 



BECAUSE I LOVE HIM 



rectly. Do you not think that God could 
have become man if He wanted to ? ' ? 

" Well; I will suppose it. What have 
you to say about it?" 

' 6 That is not enough, sir. You must 
either admit it or deny it. You say that 
God is almighty, that nothing is impossible 
to Him. You believe that His liberty 
knows no bounds, that He can choose what- 
ever good He wishes to do. The upshot of 
all that is that if God should choose to 
make Himself man, He has the power to do 
so." 

Hereupon, the Spaniard who had braced 
himself against the door a few minutes pre- 
viously, asked Lorenzo if he were on the 
point of conversion, The dentist, some- 
what vexed, bade the young man go away 5 
alleging that he was occupied with matters 
a little too serious for him to consider. 
Father Tinniens felt that the rebuke was 
merited, yet he went on as if he had not 
heard it. 

' 6 Now, sir, tell me what objection you 
may have to what I have said. If you 
deny that God could choose to become man, 
you meddle with His infinite liberty. If 
you deny that He could have become man 
after choosing to do so, you destroy His 
almightiness." 

49 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



" No ; I cannot consent to that. My God 
is all-free and eternally omnipotent." 

" Then He could have become man, 
should He have chosen to do so. Now I 
am going to give yon a reason for snch a 
choice. You speak truthfully when you 
say that God has no need of us. He is all- 
sufficient, of Himself. He is infinite and 
is far indeed from finding such base crea- 
tures necessary for His happiness. But 
still we are His handiwork. We are His 
creation. We, in all our lowliness, be- 
long to Him." 

" Yes, indeed. It is all perfectly clear." 

" Well, then, because we belong to God, 
because we were His, and because we were 
so desperately in need of Him owing to 
our innate helplessness, He decided to 
raise us up to a higher level. He deter- 
mined to help us, for He did not wish to 
have created us in vain. He decided to 
teach us, to make us more noble than we 
had been before, and to go about that work 
of improvement, He adapted Himself to 
us. He stooped to us. He became man. " 

" But such debasement! It is incredi- 
ble." 

"Incredible it would be, sir, were we to 
judge only from a narrow, human stand- 

50 



BECAUSE I LOVE HIM 



point. But yon mnst remember that God 
in His goodness, is infinitely generous and 
it is only this boundless perfection that 
could have led Him to debase Himself to 
such a degree. He came to earth to treat 
with us as we treat with one another. He 
stooped as a mother to her child, as a mas- 
ter to his pupil." 

Lorenzo grew more and more attentive. 
He even grew religious in his demeanor. 
He clasped his hands firmly and with his 
eyes fixed steadily on the table, seemed 
beyond the reach of distraction. So the 
priest continued: 

" You are aware that no master begins 
at once to instruct his young pupils in the 
use of philosophical terms, in astronomy, 
botany, or the rest of the sciences. He 
speaks at first simple things. He uses 
child-like expressions and illustrations, 
He imitates perhaps childish gabble and 
plays at the little ones' games — all to win 
them. Then he advances them, striving at 
all times to make them better and more 
like himself. And indeed, his dignity, far 
from being compromised by these conde- 
scensions, rather increases with his suc- 
cess. Now, it was just that way with God. 
He was so good and merciful, whereas we 

51 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



were so miserable and in such extreme 
want, that He determined to succor us. To 
do that, He chose, in His infinite wisdom, 
to accommodate Himself to us, to become 
like one of us. He determined to become 
man in order to place Himself in a condi- 
tion in which we might see Him, talk with 
Him, feel the throbbings of His heart, and 
be convinced that He loves us. He acted 
like a schoolmaster teaching his pupil. " 

' 6 Like a schoolmaster ! Ah ! how beau- 
tiful !" 

" Indeed, sir, is that not reasonable t n 
k4 Ah! But God was not obliged to do 
that." 

" True! He was not obliged to, but He 
is, as you have so well stated, the abyss 
of all perfection and therefore He is all 
good and filled with love. It was His 
goodness, His infinite love and mercy that 
prompted Him to stoop so low. He was 
not obliged to become man. In His infinite 
wisdom. He knew a thousand other ways 
of drawing us to Himself, yet His sur- 
passing liberty and tender compassion led 
Him to choose that one that would appeal 
to us most. That is to say. He chose to 
become human to save human man." 

" So He condescended like a schoolmas- 

52 



BECAUSE I LOVE HIM 



ter!" Lorenzo seemed absorbed in the 
thought. 

" Yes/' continued the priest, " and I do 
not think yon can call the Incarnation ri- 
diculous, when viewed in this light. God 
lost none of His illimitable majesty in be- 
coming man and so there was no absurdity 
in the claims of Christ. Rather they were 
plausible in the highest degree and there 
can be no sound reason for denying them." 

" Well, then, if Christ is God, He will 
enlighten me, for I am sincere." 

"Indeed, sir, if, as I believe, you are 
at heart sincere, your prayer of hope will 
be answered. Christ is as good and mer- 
ciful now as when He was on earth. All 
that is required of any of us is that we do 
what lies in our power to discover the 
truths and abide by it. If one does that, 
the chances are that the amiable and ador- 
able Christ will surely enlighten him sooner 
or later." 

" Yes! and me, too," exclaimed the den- 
tist, "because I love Him." Lorenzo 
seemed to be totally enrapt in pious re- 
flection. From that on, he grew even more 
serious than he had been before, and 
Father Tinniens began to feel with con- 
fidence that his new friend was a stray 

53 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



sheep seeking the true fold. 6 6 And me, 
too, because I love Him!" What simple 
words and how full of hope ! They seemed 
to be inspired by deep thought and deeper 
sentiment, such as could spring only from 
a tender heart. 

VIII. 

Father Tinniens left the dentist in medi- 
tation. By this time the two continents of 
Europe and Africa had been sighted. All 
eyes were turned towards them. Kodaks, 
field-glasses and telescopes were being dis- 
played on all sides. A few of the younger 
passengers were filling their note-books 
while others were engaged in sketching. 
Some found the sight " lovely others, 
" grand a few others, " sublime and 
a slender banker from New England, ' 6 di- 
vine. 9 9 

At this climax, - the little group of ec- 
clesiastics, Father Tinniens included, set 
about excogitating an epithet that would 
rival all others. But before they succeed- 
ed, the Spaniard, who was far from being 
lost in admiration, strutted by rather 
proudly and exclaimed: " I can afford to 
throw Shakespeare overboard now. I land 
in four hours." He passed on unnoticed. 

54 



BECAUSE I LOVE HIM 



The students felt that his departure would 
be to their liking, for he could then no 
longer molest them. Four hours later he 
disembarked, more estranged, however, 
from the little group than when he had 
boarded the steamer at New York. 

Lorenzo frequently spoke to the eccle- 
siastics during the few remaining days of 
the voyage, but always with much reserve 
and with increased respect. However, he 
refrained from touching further on re- 
ligious matters. Whether he had really 
been moved by the discussions he had 
brought about is known to himself and to 
God. Father Tinniens thought he was, for 
the last words of the dentist seemed to 
him more eloquent than an open admis- 
sion: "And me, too, because I love Him!" 

Indeed, may our Saviour enlighten Lo- 
renzo, for he showed himself at least a man 
of good will. Yet he was a man who had 
not tasted of the peace that was heralded 
by the angels at Bethlehem; and since it 
is that peace which Christ came to estab- 
lish, let us pray that our Saviour's mis- 
sion may not prove ineffectual in Lorenzo 's 
regard, 



SI 



PERSUADED? 



LEAVES EEOM A TRAVELER^ DIARY. 

Father Tikniens, the missionary, never 
neglected an opportunity for discussing 
things religions with his fellow travelers, 
especially when they made the way easy. 

He did not, indeed, consider himself es- 
pecially honored in gaining the confidence 
of non-Catholics, yet he always made it a 
point when conversing with them on re- 
ligions topics to impress upon them the 
fact that Catholics are imbued with the 
spirit of the Gospel no less than Protest- 
ants ; and, moreover, that Catholics could 
not be satisfied with the spirit of the Gos- 
pel, unless it were proved to them that it 
contains the whole of the spirit of Christ, 

But Mr. Eothstock was not going to give 
occasion to have this truth drawn out dur- 
ing their brief chat. He was too much pre- 
occupied with a multitude of small grudges 
against ''Romanism" that swarmed about 
in his mind like microbes in unhealthful 
water. Put together they had for him an 

56 



PERSUADED ? 



overwhelming and crashing force against 
what he felt was the bane of medieval and 
modern times. He had studied Romanism. 
He had seen it in practice. He had scruti- 
nized it in the very heart of Christendom. 
He had visited Ste. Anne de Beaupre, St. 
James of Compostella, Lourdes, Rome, 
Jerusalem, and he had come away from all 
these places persuaded that Moses might 
once more conscientiously dash the Tables 
of the Law to pieces through indignation 
at the superstition and idolatry that 
reigned everywhere. At Lourdes it was 
the cult of " the Virgin;" at Ste. Anne's 
and St. James's it was a sort of refined 
f etichism ; at Rome it was Antichrist, while 
at Jerusalem it was the "abomination of 
desolation." 

For all that, Mr. Rothstock was not pre- 
judiced against Catholicism, nor did he 
mean to speak in an offensive strain. If 
he treated frankly of odious matters, of 
things that were to him an eyesore, it was 
because he judged them to be real, crying 
evils that must be uprooted, sooner or 
later, in behalf of the nobler portion of the 
race, and he wished merely to contribute 
Ms humble efforts towards encouraging 
a reaction and thus bring about the desired 

57 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



amelioration of religious and social condi- 
tions as soon as possible. 

" What, then, can the devout worshipers 
at Lourdes, Rome, and Jerusalem have 
done to you?" pertinently asked Father 
Tinniens, as he learned that his supposed 
aggressor was a man of such disinterested- 
ness and broad philanthropy. 

u To me!" repeated the minister. ' 6 That 
makes little difference. I am not seeking 
any personal benefit in the plans I would 
enforce." 

But the priest begged leave to ask what 
outrages in particular could so much en- 
gage his companion's attention. 

"I did not employ the term 'outrages' " 
was the hesitating reply, " yet, since you 
suggest it and since it suits my idea, I'll 
use it. I call the fostering of ignorance 
outrage. I call the wilful patronage of 
superstition outrage. I call the imposi- 
tions of an infallible Pope, with all their 
attendant evils, an outrage of the most 
despicable character;" 

" Ah! that is more definite," put in 
Father Tinniens, " and, I dare say, more 
gentlemanly, for when you speak openly 
of the Holy Father, even though it be to 
malign him, I know where we are. Until 

5§ 



PERSUADED ? 



you mentioned him, you seemed to act 
covertly. By veiling your accusations and 
labeling them 6 ignorance,' ' superstition,' 
6 Antichrist ' and the like, you led me to 
think you were a man who liked to give 
thrusts in the dark, or rather, that you 
were one who conscientiously, though un- 
consciously, hated his neighbor with the 
sublime conviction that he did so for the 
love of God." 

Mr. Rothstock seemed hardly able to 
grasp the gist of the reply, yet he felt it 
implied a demand for explanation which 
clearly placed him under obligation. So 
in a less animated mood he continued: 

" What I dislike about all sanctuaries is 
the bartering out of indulgences. Take, for 
instance, the Scala Santa at Rome. While 
there I saw dozens of people going up and 
down the stairs on their knees because they 
read on a sign overhead that if they did 
so, and meditated on the Passion of Christ, 
they would gain a fabulous indulgence of 
I forget how many years. Why, such out- 
landish practices as that have no other ef- 
fect than to put a premium on supersti- 
tion and so stunt the growth of man's 
moral being, for in the hope of gaining 
an indulgence those ignorant people forget 

59 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



the necessity of interior correction and re- 
newal of life." 

" I do not see how the effects can be so 
disastrous as yon think, ' ' remarked Father 
Tinniens. " Perhaps yon are not aware 
of the nature of an indulgence, or of the 
conditions required to gain one. If the 
pilgrims of whom you speak were in need 
of interior renewal — I mean, if they were 
in the state of sin and refused to rise 
therefrom — they might climb and descend 
those stairs until doomsday, and not one 
of the Sovereign Pontiffs, nor all of them 
together, could grant them a single day's 
indulgence. Moreover, you have remarked 
that they must meditate on the Passion. 
That is as indispensable as going up and 
down the steps. What is more, it is an 
act of devotion and of itself might do f:he 
soul more good than the indulgence given 
on account of it. Yet, if the indulgence had 
not been offered, that act of piety would in 
many cases have been neglected." 

i - That may be, but it is the indulgence- 
principle that is faulty. Sin must always 
be forgiven by God in secret and never as 
a result of such pantomimic perform- 
ances," 

" But an indulgence is not a forgiveness 
60 



PERSUADED ? 



of sin. It is a remission of only the pen- 
alty that the sinner would have to under- 
go for his offences either in this life or in 
the next. He may be guiltless before God ; 
he may have repented for all his trans- 
gressions, and yet he has a fine to pay, a 
chastisement to undergo. In ancient times 
this chastisement was determined by the 
Church. For certain offences it was nec- 
essary to spend whole months fasting on 
bread and water, to give large alms, to go 
to great inconvenience in doing other acts 
of mercy, to undertake long pilgrimages 
afoot, and the like, and yet no one with cor- 
rect ideas of the justice and holiness of 
God can say that such penances as these 
were greater than the sins deserved. Yet 
to-day, such penalties could not be imposed 
and the Church, like a kind mother, remits 
them, as she has the right to do, by grant- 
ing indulgences, " 

" Oh, yes!" replied Mr. Eothstock, in 
an impatient and sceptical tone, ' ' but your 
Church has the presumption to forgive 
sins as well as to remit penalties. The con- 
fessional stole, you know, is as great a pan- 
acea as the Immaculate Conception at 
Lourdes. And, then, there is the infallible 
Pope to approve of all. Do you not hon- 

61 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



estly think that the Eoman Church would 
be a great deal better off and more ami- 
cable with its sister churches if it abolished 
the confessional and laid down its author- 
ity ?" 

"But the Eoman Church is not free to 
lay down her authority," answered Father 
Tinniens with much firmness. "She has 
been too strongly charged by our Saviour 
Himself to guard it jealously until the end 
of time ; and she will ever remain faithful 
to that charge, for her divine Founder 
Himself has promised her a final victory 
and complete triumph over all her ene- 
mies." 

Hereupon, Mr. Eothstock interrupted 
the priest. He was regretfully obliged to 
take his leave, yet an exchange of visiting 
cards guaranteed to Father Tinniens an 
opportunity of reaching his new acquaint- 
ance more effectually, perhaps, because 
more coolly and deliberately, by letter. 
Their correspondence follows: 

II. 

Eev. Mr. Eothstock: 

Dear Sir: — Despite the very well-de- 
fined opposition that we evinced towards 
each other a few days ago, it is evident 

62 



PERSUADED ? 



that we possess much in common. You 
are a Christian. So am I. Yon love man- 
kind. So do I. Yon believe in the uproot- 
ing of evils. So do I. Perhaps it is only a 
question of which evils must be torn up 
and which must be tolerated. I would not 
like to place you in the category of those 
whom the Prophet condemns for calling 
white black and black white, sweet sour 
and sour sweet, yet I dare say you make a 
woeful blunder in thinking that Catholi- 
cism, which you strove to condemn whole- 
sale, is but a morbid parasite absorbing 
the sap and stunting the growth of " the 
noblest part of the race." 

It was the outward signs of devotion to 
which you chiefly took exception. You 
called them " pantomimic " and said they 
reminded you of " fetichisra." The same 
might be said of all forms of courtesy. 
They are " pantomimic," and the more 
they are multiplied or the more stringent 
they become, so much the more ridiculous 
does man make himself in submitting to 
them. Yet a man without politeness is not 
a gentleman, and if he wilfully remains 
without it or disparages it, he is doing all 
that lies in his power to effect a readoption 
of the ways and usages of savagery. As 

63 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



one's education advances, he becomes more 
refined. Consequently, since religion is 
the foremost element in a Christian's edu- 
cation, I cannot understand how he can 
consistently object to the use of an estab- 
lished etiquette during prayer or any other 
religious exercise, knowing, as he does, 
that at such moments the soul presents 
itself before the divine Majesty and en- 
deavors to take part in a royal function 
where angels bow down and adore. 

But that is a small matter. You aspersed 
doctrines tnat I have cherished from my 
youth as those of Christ, and I feel called 
upon to protest. Your reference to the 
Immaculate Conception bordered on the 
disrespectful, yet I presume you spoke 
without malice, and I ought perhaps to 
overlook your manner of speaking and do 
what I can to cure in you the evil which 
you so severely condemn in others. 

The Immaculate Conception is not an 
object of veneration at Lourdes alone. It 
is a belief of the Universal Church, and it 
is a mystery particularly dear to us Ameri- 
cans, for the United States has been 

DEDICATED TO THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. 

We dare even to think, at times, that the 
peace and prosperity that have gained for 

64 



PERSUADED t 



our country a unique and most enviable 
fame are ascribable in great part to the 
patronage of her who is thus honored. 

Mary, the Mother of Jesus, has always 
been considered by Christians more holy 
than the angels. 

The grounds for thinking our dearest 
Mother so holy are that she was elected 
from amongst all women to be the taber- 
nacle of the Most High, and since the Son 
of God, like His heavenly Father, dwells 
not in temples 6 ' made with hands," the 
only way to keep our ideas of His measure- 
less sanctity untarnished is by saying that 
He would never have consented to take 
upon Himself flesh that had been once sub- 
ject to sin. His mother, then, must always 
have been pure. Even so early as the fifth 
century Catholics honored her nativity, and 
two or three centuries later they began 
to inquire if they might not also celebrate 
religiously the moment when her soul was 
infused into her body. Some hesitated, 
for they wondered if Christ did not have 
to redeem His Mother as well as us, not 
from any personal sin, but from the racial 
guilt transmitted by our first parents. 
They felt that he did, and they were right, 
yet they found themselves face to face 

65 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



with a movement that seemed inspired and 
which conld not be checked. Nearly all 
Christendom denied that such guilt had 
been contracted, and the Immaculate Con- 
ception became a world-wide devotion. 
To-day there is no longer room for doubt. 
Eome — the only power on earth that could 
put an end to the controversy — has spoken 
and proclaimed that the special privilege 
reserved for the Mother of God was that 
she was redeemed, not by being washed 
from original sin, but by being totally pre- 
served from contracting it. Why, then, 
do you despise those who honor her whom 
Christ honored, her whom God the Father 
and the Holy Ghost joined in venerating? 
Think not it is a new dogma. We venerate 
only what the first Christians venerated 
— the sanctity of God's Mother. 

I know you will tell me I have swal- 
lowed a camel. It was Eome that inter- 
vened — the abode of " Antichrist. " But 
I am not affrighted by names. It is enough 
for me to know that Christ built His 
Church on " a rock." If the Papacy is 
not that rock, in vain do I look elsewhere 
to find it. Outside the Church all is tur- 
moil and confusion. Divisions multiply 
and new religions spring up every day. 

66 



PERSUADED t 



There is no vital bond of union in Protes- 
tantism except hereditary opposition to 
the Catholic Church. On the other hand, 
the Catholic Church is the only one that 

CAN MAINTAIN AUTHORITY OVEE HER CHIL- 
DREN. She alone can bid those she loves 
most dearly to submit to confiscation of 
property, outlawry and martyrdom, and 
be obeyed. She is the only Church that 
can brook persecution with the assurance 
that she will be better after it than before. 

Her power to forgive sins depends en- 
tirely on the will of Christ, of which she 
alone is the interpreter. I need only re- 
mark that confession is a holy institution 
and an incalculable help even in the attain- 
ment of social rectitude. It goes to the 
bottom of wrongs, and by correcting the 
individual, wields a powerful influence on 
the society of which he forms a part. How 
many have been deterred from compromis- 
ing their honor before man, as well as be- 
fore God, by the mere thought : " If I do 
that, I shall have to weep for it in the 
confessional." Penitence, indeed, is sweet, 
but it costs too dear. Such is the doctrine 
inculcated by every confessor. No greater 
evil could befall a Christian than the loss 
of God's friendship, and the penitent is 

67 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



exhorted to return to his heavenly Father's 
house. 

If you question the efficacy of the priest's 
forgiveness, I can only say to you: The 
Church that is built on a rock knows the 
length and breadth of its teachings and 
authority and where it got both, and such 
a Church is the Church of Christ. 

Sincerely yours, 

A. J. Tinniens. 

III. 

Following is Mr. Kothstock's reply: 
Dear Sir and Brother: — I have often 
thought if we could see one another as we 
see ourselves, we would come nearer carry- 
ing out the designs of Jesus than we actu- 
ally do. Certain it is, since I, the " Evan- 
gelical," have exchanged views with you, 
the " Eoman Friar," my heart has soft- 
ened and I have awakened to the convic- 
tion that the barrier which separates us 
may not be quite so formidable as I had 
at first imagined. However, I perceive it 
is an immovable one for the present. Yet, 
since you have taken the liberty to speak 
most frankly in the defense of Eoman Ca- 
tholicism, I feel privileged to say a few 
words for the Evangelical side. 

68 



PERSUADED? 



I honor one and all of your religions 
sentiments. I like to think of yon as an 
intelligent co-worker in the vineyard of 
Christ. Yet I must say the reasons yon 
give for your belief seem puerile to me. 
The one final clincher for all is the author- 
ity of the " Catholic Church." I object 
to snch an exclusive nse of the term ' 6 Cath- 
olic," but let that go. It is enough to state 
that the authority of the Eoman Church is 
a thing that is by no means proved, and, 
consequently, all that is built thereon must 
totter and fall. 

Your interpretation of the text, "Thou 
art Peter, and upon this rock I will build 
my church," is to my mind contrary to 
the obvious sense of Christ's words. For 
us the Papacy is but a relic of Eoman Im- 
perialism, Indeed, I am aware that its 
support wields a powerful influence in sus- 
taining the great body of the Eoman Cath- 
olic clergy and in keeping them above the 
common people, whom they treat as chil- 
dren. But in the cause of true religion it 
would be better to come down to the level 
of the people, to mix with them and throw 
aside the medieval fancy that the saviours 
of the race, the priestly caste, are set apart 
and sanctified by the laying-on of hands. 

69 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



If Christ were really the founder of 
your Church He would have written a 
whole detailed code of ritual and cere- 
monial enactments. He would not have 
been satisfied with the Gospel. The Church 
in which you take such pride has stultified 
itself. It has accepted the Gospel, but has 
heaped upon it masses of sheer " Aber- 
glaube " that are no longer tolerable to 
the intelligent. I cannot conceive how you 
can shut your eyes so easily to such an 
abuse. 

It would take too much time to descend 
to the minor issues raised in your letter. 
* I merely wish to say that these are days 
in which we should not fear to break away 
from the apron-strings of medieval ignor- 
ance and formalism. We are called upon 
to live in the present and for both the pres- 
ent and the future. Put the idolatry of the 
Virgin down where it belongs — among 
your relics of the Dark Ages. Take action 
against the confessional instead of in its 
favor, for the vaunted sanctity of the 
priesthood is defiled by upholding it. Only 
a few days ago the papers of our city were 
filled with a story of one of its repeated 
abuses. " Mike " McCarthy, a notorious 
criminal, was about to be executed. The 



70 



PERSUADED ? 



priest came forth and heard his confes- 
sion. Straightway it was proclaimed to 
the world that 66 Mike " had received ab- 
solution and had been forgiven, and was 
just as well prepared for the hereafter as 
the saints of yore. Now I think that 
Mike's deeds had gone before him to judg- 
ment and that no such superficial submis- 
sion to the outward requirements imposed 
by a Church of any kind could have suf- 
ficed to whiten such a filthy soul. I do not, 
indeed, deny such a thing as a deathbed 
repentance. I remember too well the pen- 
itent thief. But I do deny that the petty 
talk of a priest is capable of bringing 
about such a thorough and heartfelt change 
as the sight of the crucified and agonizing 
Master. 

It is not my wish to lead you away from 
Romanism, but I would have you embrace 
the broad principles of Evangelicalism, 
The divisions you allude to among us are 
only superficial. Touch the fundamentals 
of faith and the entire Evangelical body 
rises as a man to protest against the sacri- 
lege. Yet we do not object to various con- 
structions of Truth. They are but the nec- 
essary consequences of finite intelligence 
coming in contact with the Infinite. 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



For the rest, it is vitality we aim at and 
not formality or formalism. Preach the 
Gospel, and its fruits spring up spontane- 
ously. There is no need of human author- 
ity interfering. The Word of God is of 
itself fecund beyond measure, and statis- 
tics prove that in our country, at least, the 
Evangelical method of propagating it is 
destined to gain the day. 

Lay aside, therefore, those preconceived 
ideas about the Church and Pope and seek 
the life-giving grace that is being poured 
out on every side. There is no need of an 
exterior element in religious worship. Let 
you and me come together with Christ in 
the midst, be it in the most remote corner 
of the globe, and there we have a Church 
in the strictest sense of the term. 

Be not blinded by childish fancies. We 
are on the eve of great happenings, when 
nations shall be formed in a day. Take no 
part, therefore, with institutions that are 
doomed to die. Throw yourself heartily 
into the battle. Place yourself in the ranks 
of Evangelicalism, for which the victory 
is destined. Then you will have occasion 
to glory in your strength. The day is not 
far off when from the smoldering ruins 
of empires Evangelicalism shall rise, 

n 



PERSUADED ? 



phenix-like, and shall show itself a life- 
saving — a world-saving — power, replete 
with the spirit of Christ, because destined 
by Him for an eternal and God-inspired 
mission. 

Should yon choose to continue this cor- 
respondence I shall do what I can to con- 
tribute my share, but I may not always be 
able to answer punctually, owing to my 
manifold duties as pastor. 

Yours sincerely, 

H. Kirby Bothstock 

IV. 

The first impression produced on Father 
Tinniens by the reading of this apostolic 
reply was one of doubt as to whether Mr. 
Bothstock in his study were the same as 
Mr. Bothstock on a journey. The minister 
had changed his attitude from one of rude 
attack to one of zealous proselytism. The 
staunch Catholic missionary replied as 
follows : 

Dear Mr. Bothstock :— We are certainly 
getting to understand each other, and I 
feel it a duty to congratulate you on hav- 
ing gone to the very bottom of the ques- 
tions involved. The clincher for me in the 

73 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



acceptance of any and all Catholic doc- 
trines is the authority of the Church that 
teaches them. You deny that that Church 
has authority and you repudiate its teach- 
ings for the simple reason that they are 
not contained in the Gospel. Which of us 
is right ? Is the Church too much or is the 
Gospel enough? 

First of all, you dislike my narrow use 
of the name Catholic, so, in order to come 
to terms, I will replace it with its only jus- 
tifiable equivalent, " Eoman." 

The Eoman Church, and it alone, is the 
Church of Christ, for it is built upon a 
rock, and that rock is the Papacy. You 
object to my interpretation of the words, 
6 6 Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will 
build my church.'' I need only answer 
that Holtzmann with certain other non- 
Catholic scholars admit that the Eoman 
way of understanding the passage is the 
only one, whereupon they infer that it was 
not in the Gospel originally but was after- 
wards placed there by interested parties. 

However, Eome does not base her claim 
upon that passage alone. She has always 
seen therein very little more than a prom- 
ise of stability to the Church of Christ, 
which quality was to centre, in some way 

74 



PERSUADED ? 



or other, about the foremost among the 
Apostles: " Thou art Peter," that is to 
say : ' 6 Thou art a rock, and upon this rock 
I shall build my Church. " The Church 
had not yet been built. 

It was after the resurrection that au- 
thority was entrusted to the Prince of 
the Apostles ; then it was that he was bid- 
den to feed the "sheep" as well as the 
" lambs " of the flock of Christ. The whole 
flock was at that moment made his and not 
any particular part of it. 

But that is not enough. The Eoman 
Church has never based any of her claims 
solely on the Gospel. It would be shame- 
ful for her to stop so short of the mark. 
It was she who produced the Gospel and 
not "e converse" "Whatever you may 
think of the Papacy, Christ certainly 
founded His Church on a rock, and not on 
a book. Nor may you claim that " the 
Book," that is, the Gospel, is the rock, for 
the Gospel did not exist in the time of 
Christ nor for long years afterwards. Not 
only that, but Christ neither wrote nor 
gave a command to write. His precept was 
" Preach," and it was by preaching that 
Christianity was introduced everywhere, 
The Gospel was an afterthought and to 

75 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



claim it as the sole basis of Christianity 
would be to put the cart before the horse. 
In short, the chief intrinsic reason for the 
acceptance of the Gospels when they were 
written was that they contained nothing 
contrary to the beliefs of the already es- 
tablished Church. They were understood 
in the light of that Church's teachings and 
not as an independent source of truth. 
They were a picture of Christ as Christ 
was known to His immediate disciples, and 
only as such were they placed in the hands 
of the faithful. 

The Eoman Church then, is right in 
maintaining that same attitude to-day and 
in refusing to understand the Gospels, or 
any part of them, except in accordance 
with those traditional beliefs which it holds 
in virtue of a divine commission. 

Had you lived before the Eeformation, 
you would have experienced no more diffi- 
culty in thinking as we Eomans do than 
did Martin Luther himself until the day 
that he made up his mind to get married. 
Then it would have been clear to you what 
was the Book, and who the Eock. But now 
you and all Protestants are being led by 
the blind and are leaders of the blind. You 
accept the Book and the traditions of men 

76 



PERSUADED? 



as to its contents, and there yon stop. The 
printed Word of God yon idolize, bnt the 
living Word of God, that which comes from 
His lips, yon ignore. Yon may do it un- 
wittingly, and so be excnsed from personal 
gnilt, bnt, like unconverted Sanl, yon are 
nevertheless kicking against the goad. 

Excnse me for speaking so plainly in de- 
fence of the Chnrch which I love as I love 
my life. I am convinced that a chain is no 
stronger than its weakest link, that the 
strength of the body is in its joints, and 
that the Eeformation that joins the Prot- 
estantism of to-day with the Eomanism of 
yesterday is a link of sand, a joint rife 
with corrnption. Take off yonr green spec- 
tacles and Eomanism will no longer seem 
a mass of verdigris. Look aronnd yon 
with the naked eye and yon will see how 
Protestantism is dancing on crutches. 

Tonching Eoman Imperialism, yon make 
the same mistake that yon do abont the 
Gospel. The Chnrch did not grow np with 
it nor on acconnt of it. It lived before it 
and it has survived it, and it will live on 
with the same snrety as the Word of God 
that cannot pass away. 

If Christ should have given ns a Leviti- 
cal Code, as Moses gave the Jews, then He 

77 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



should also have given you the Gospel; 
but He did neither. Why stick so fast to 
such littleness of judgment? 

Your appeal to statistics amounts to 
zeko. You should have gone farther and 
seen that the growth of atheism and infidel- 
ity in the United States surpasses that of 
Protestantism. If statistics prove any- 
thing, they cry loud for ungodliness. The 
Moslem will say as much for Mohamme- 
danism, the Hindoo for Brahminism, the 
Chinaman for Confucianism as you say for 
Protestantism, and each appeals to the sta- 
tistics of his own country, and the statis- 
tics, in turn, show that he has good reasons 
for doing so. 

I deny, then, that the success of Prot- 
estantism comes from the inherent efficacy 
of the Word of God when preached. 
Bather it is produced by the instinctive 
craving in man's breast for God and re- 
ligion — I mean for God and a bond of 
union with God. Man is necessarily a re- 
ligious creature, and because he cannot 
break away from his own nature he is 
bound to accept at least the creeds current 
roundabout him. In Europe and America 
he accepts Christianity. In Asia and Africa 
he identifies himself with pagan cults. 

78 



PERSUADED ? 



Protestantism flourishes because human 
nature flourishes, and if it spreads faster 
than Romanism, it is because it is more 
human and less divine. Eemember that 
cockle used to grow in the same field as 
wheat in our Lord's time. Men must walk 
in some path, but they choose by prefer- 
ence a broad one. 

But men are logical as well as religious, 
and once they accept a principle they push 
it to its utmost conclusions. Protestant- 
ism is doomed. It leads to Rationalism and 
its first-fruits are fast ripening. Your 
reasons for accepting the Gospel are 
wholly subjective. You cannot prove its 
authority. You claim it is inspired, but 
you cannot demonstrate its inspiration. 
You have built your Church upon it like a 
statue in the air. There is no pedestal 
beneath, so that both must be unreal. 

If you believe the Gospel is inspired, it 
is because the Eoman Church taught you 
so long, long ago, and if you find the spirit 
of Christ in your religious body, it is as 
a relic of bygone days, so deeply rooted 
that it could not be pulled up at will. But 
the way of all flesh is the same. It was 
Protestantism, not Roman Catholicism, 
that gave birth to Rationalism. Protestant 

79 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



Christianity must yield to a Bationalistic 
Christianity, where Christ will be but a 
philosopher, one step higher up than Soc- 
rates. You deny that Eoman Catholicism 
is in the Gospel. I have shown you why it 
was never intended to be put there. Now 
it is time to say that Protestantism is not 
there either, so that the Gospel can be no 
check to its downward course. 

You must pray in secret and only in 
secret. You must repent in secret, though 
you sin in public. The poor heart must 
do all. The hands, the lips, the tongue, the 
brain, may grow feverish and rebel, but 
the poor heart, and it alone, must make 
up for all afterwards. Is that enough? 
Ah, if that heart were filled with love for 
a creature no one would reproach it for 
giving outward expression to its emotions. 
If that heart were crushed with human sor- 
row, it would bring tears to the eyes, pal- 
lor to the cheeks, sobs and sighs to the 
quivering lips, but when it is a question of 
divine worship, that poor heart, instead of 
performing acts most perfect for its na- 
ture, must keep silent and do violence to 
itself — lest its works should be seen by 
men, lest they should be led thereby to 
adore their heavenly Father ! 

80 



PERSUADED ? 



No, Protestantism is the work of man, 
and, like every other work of man, it must 
die. It calls itself Christian and adores 
Christ as God, but it rejects the work 
of Christ in shutting its ears to the 
teachings of the Church, For individ- 
ual believers, the Gospel, unless authori- 
tatively interpreted, does not prove the 
divinity of Christ any more than it proves 
the divine institution of Protestantism; 
and if men of to-day can uphold the 
latter as a supremely religious organiza- 
tion, Christian because of its irresistible 
vitality in the work of proselytism, then I 
must confess that the same psychic phe- 
nomenon working nineteen hundred years 
ago in the mind of the most religious man 
the race has ever produced, was sufficient 
to make that man think himself both Christ 
and God. On purely Protestant principles, 
if these be pressed to their final issue, 
Christ is only a philosopher, — the type of 
human perfection, it is true, — but He 
stultified himself in claiming divine Son- 
ship. The Eationalists, therefore, in 
denying Christ's divinity, are pushing 
Protestant doctrine to its ultimate conclu- 
sion; and for that reason, were I to cease 
to be a Eoman Catholic, I could not stop 

81 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



at the half-way house of Protestantism. I 
would have to go all the way and become a 
Kationalist, heart and soul. 

Eeligion needs a Church and without a 
Church there is no religion. But I do not 
understand by a Church what you under- 
stand by it. It is not enough to come to- 
gether in Christ's name in order to form a 
Church, and neither Christ nor the Gospel 
says so anywhere. That idea is another 
ready-made teaching of Protestant Illunii- 
nism. Christ's Church is not an institu- 
tion that may be formed and disunited at 
will. It is a permanent organization of 
unfailing oneness, because of the oneness 
of its Founder, its oneness of doctrine and 
its singleness of purpose. Such a oneness 
is not to be found in Protestantism. 

Your 6 ' various constructions of Truth'' 
amount to absolute contradictions, as the 
multitude of Protestant sects plainly shows. 
Moreover, you are not in harmony as to 
" fundamentals," if such you choose to call 
them. The truth is, that Protestantism is 
but an international fraternity for the 
avowed purpose of expressing the religious 
idea — and opposing Catholicity ( ?) — so that 
there are as many different varieties of 
Protestantism as there are denominations 

S3 



PERSUADED? 



or groups of friends. It is not, therefore, 
entitled to call itself a Church in the sense 
in which Christ used that term. 

But this is precisely what it undertakes 
to do, as your definition shows. At the 
period of the Beformation, Protestantism 
found the old idea that had come down 
through the Apostles from Christ Himself 
too unyielding, so they adopted a new one 
more to their liking. Catholics, on the con- 
trary, kept in the beaten path. The Church 
for them is a real exterior authority, inde- 
pendent of their making, and totally de- 
pendent on heaven alone for its perma- 
nence. To it they bow as they would bow 
to Christ; they know that Christ has not 
left them orphans. Yes, they are " chil- 
dren, ?? children of God and of His Church, 
and they do not spurn the epithet. 

I am not going to bother about the con= 
fessional or the laying-on of hands. Once 
I admit the authority of the Church, I 
find one of its doctrines just as easy to 
believe as another. Its authority is their 
sole and entire proof. Its word is God's 
word. Yet I shall venture a final word 
about Mike McCarthy. Your remarks 
were prompted by the 1 6 Touch-me-not-f or- 
I-am-clean" spirit. Are you really of- 

83 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



fended because we walk with sinners and 
eat with them — you who boast about stoop- 
ing to the people and mixing with them in 
order to bring them up to your level ? Ah ! 
we mingle with sinners without hesitation 
and we do i^ot have to stoop to do so. 
Think of poor Mike McCarthy as you wish. 
If he received absolution, it was because he 
gave signs of an interior repentance, even 
as did the penitent thief on the cross, and 
not because of a mere outward submission 
to an empty ceremonial. The Church de- 
mands more than that, and his confessor 
was in a better position to judge of his 
spiritual condition than either you or I. 
For my part, I prefer to think that the 
Good Samaritan poured oil and balm into 
his festering wounds and that this pocr 
sinner was found worthy of God's mercy 
in his dying moments. 

. Sincerely yours, 

A. J. Tinniens. 

To this epistle Eev. Mr. Eothstock made 
no reply. Was he Peesuaded? 




SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 



The two hundred and twenty-nine thou- 
sand students who to-day are attending in- 
stitutions of higher learning in the United 
States will undeniably be the ruling power 
of the land a few years hence. They will 
control the Government, the State and ed- 
ucational institutions, the great industries, 
the stage, the popular novel, and the daily 
newspaper. They will direct American 
thought. They will influence in great meas- 
ure America's morality, with its religion 
or irreligion. The country, in a word, will 
be what they make it, for the multitude 
will follow their leadership. This being 
the case, an examination of the principles 
operating in their formation will be both 
interesting and profitable. 

The following propositions purport to 
come from the lips and pens of profes- 
sors in the foremost universities in the 
land. Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Syracuse, 
Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Chi- 
cago, and other universities are repre- 
- sented. The oracles say : 

85 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



(1) Heaven has nothing to do with hu- 
manity. 

(2) The change from religion to religion 
is like getting a new hat. 

(3) The Decalogue is no more sacred 
than a syllabus poem. 

(4) The majority can make anything 
right. 

(5) Ethics grow out of custom and ought 
to be discarded. 

(6) Immorality is mere contravention to 
standards fixed by the common consent of 
society. 

(7) Pair marriage is produced by the 
conditions of society and is transitory. 

(8) The spontaneous preference of a 
man and a woman should not be held in 
check, since every normal man and woman 
has room for more than one person in his 
heart. 

(9) The home as an institution is 
doomed. 

(10) The horror of incest is based upon 
a myth. 

The list might be extended, but a more 
complete enumeration of errors so un- 
blushingly enunciated would prove more 
startling than salutary. 



86 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES 



II. 

Some time ago a Catholic editor, wish- 
ing to put the sum total of Modernism in 
a nutshell, described it as unhappily re- 
versing the ancient creed of God creating 
man into the more novel one of man creat- 
ing God. This fantastic doctrine is the 
basic principle of the philosophy taught in 
many American universities. If, as is 
clearly stated in the first proposition, 
heaven has nothing to do with humanity, 
then God might just as well be non-ex- 
istent. Now, if there is no God, or if God 
is wholly unconcerned about human ac- 
tivity, then mankind has been mistaken all 
along in thinking the contrary; and the 
God Who has enjoyed so prominent a place 
in man's heart, soul and affections, in all 
ages, was but the product of human fancy 
or conventionality. 

From this proposition, as a premise, the 
others in the above series flow as naturally 
as water from a spring. Once God, or di- 
vine intervention in human affairs, is dis- 
carded, usage, custom and conventionality 
step in to take their place, These are as- 
serted to have been the supreme creative 
and preservative energies of religion, mor- 

87 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



ality, society and the home. Eeligion and 
morality are stated to have had binding 
force, only because man was accustomed 
to give it to them. 1 Social and home life 
have had their prestige only because each 
successive generation has been enthralled 
by the traditions and practices of its pre- 
decessors. Hence, in an age like ours, when 
reason is growing conscious of its inde- 
pendence, these institutions, all-holy 
though they be, are doomed for the same 
cause that God is doomed. Man was born 
free. So, then, should he live, so should 
he die! 

Explain this irreligious system as you 
may, it cannot be palliated. Any attempt 
at philosophical analysis will be but a sham 
unless it tend to throw into greater relief 
the hideousness of this school of error. 
The immediate consequences of this kind 
of teaching are indicated by the following 
incident : A certain Catholic student who 
attends one of the universities above named 
naively observed to the writer recently 
that he purposelv refrained from reading 
Catholic periodicals because, he said, 
" they are all the time pouring on the 
vitriol ! ' ' Perhaps he was right ! Perhaps 

1 Mos e more. 
88 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES 



the periodicals are right, too! It is just 
such weaklings as these who are being 
poisoned the land over. Gradually they 
learn to say with Tennyson's lotus-eaters: 

16 Hateful is the dark-blue sky, 
Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea, 
Death is the end of life; ah, why 
Should life all labor be? 
Let us alone." 

III. 

It is the question of morality that chiefly 
concerns us. What constitutes morality? 
Various explanations have been offered, 
some of which are anything but satisfying. 
There is a " morale physiologique," and a 
" morale psychologique," and a " morale 
esthetique." The first of these recognizes 
Nature's retribution for the immoral vio- 
lation of Nature's laws; the second sees 
in ennobling affection and sympathy a mo- 
tive force which leads to the observance 
of the Golden Eule; the third says: "Do 
good because good is beautiful, shun evil 
because of its deformity." But none of 
these standards contains the first essential 
of morality. The theory on which the 
" morale physiologique " bases its claim 

89 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



is untenable and puerile. It merely holds 
that Nature resents abuse of her laws and 
sometimes afflicts the transgressor. In the 
" morale psychologique " the fascinating 
charm of sympathy influences too few to 
be held up as a standard for all. Prag- 
matic natures, especially, are alien to it. 
As for the "morale esthetique," the beauty 
of virtue and the ugliness of vice are too 
relative and too abstract to be grasped by 
the multitude. Given a well-defined and 
divinely sanctioned moral standard, this 
triple "morale'' will have a meaning, but 
without that it is too fantastic, too shallow 
and soulless, to be worthy of the name it 
bears. 

"What is morality? It is what men make 
it, say the Positivists, for " the majority 
can make anything right " (prop. 4) God 
has been dethroned. What remains but to 
enthrone omnipotent man in his place! 

It would be an admission of helpless- 
ness to say we shall meet these men on 
their own ground. When Lazarus will 
moisten the lips of Dives, when Christ will 
stoop to lift up Belial, then, and not till 
then, can we hope for an "entente" with 
these breeders of corruption, There is 
nothing in common between us. Theology 

90 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES 



and metaphysics are despised by them be- 
cause God and Law, the objects of these 
sciences, have been destroyed. " A priori' 9 
reasoning is turned to ridicule, because the 
point from which it starts has been an- 
nihilated. It would be futile for us to say 
that although God is, as we know, the firm 
support and sanctioner of the moral order, 
we shall nevertheless treat with our adver- 
saries without considering Him. 2 Such an 
abstraction would be absurdly nugatory. 
To come to terms it would not be enough 
to leave God unconsidered ; it would be re- 
quired to imitate those we would fain con- 
vince, and deny His existence, or at least 
His influence altogether. " Formerly, 99 
writes an influential professor, " the best 
man in the community was the good Sa- 
maritan, but now society owes its debt to 
the wealthy and far-seeing citizenry that 
paves, and lights, and polices the road to 
Jericho." It is material self-preservation 
and not God that is laid down for us as the 
fundamental principle underlying the reg- 
ulations of the moral and social orders. 
The very oughtness of moral acts has no 
more lofty motive than this. Such a posi- 
tion is, of course, impossible for Catholics 

- Sine Deo cognitO: 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



IV. 

The scholastics recognized the principle 
of self-preservation, " omne ens quaerit 
suum esse," but they were far from ending 
their investigations there. They clearly 
perceived that any obligations arising 
solely from such a basis would be purely 
relative and by no means moral. They 
delved deeply, not indeed to lay the foun- 
dations of the moral structure, but to lay 
bare the rock on which it was already built. 
The edifice had been long in existence. It 
was their heritage, but they did not accept 
it without testing its solidity. 

Going back as do the Modernists merely 
to the interior and purely subjective dic- 
tates of reason, they could get no firm foot- 
ing for the moral order. The minds of 
all were, indeed, clamoring for the doing 
of good and the shunning of evil. Self- 
preservation was the instinct behind much 
of this, yet that was not enough to make 
the good to be done or the evil to be 
avoided moral or immoral in quality. Be- 
viewing the past, they beheld at different 
epochs of the world's history the most 
flagrant indecencies paraded in the open as 
virtue by men who seemed to be sincere. 

92 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES 



Theft had been regarded as a convenient 
accomplishment. Prostitution had passed 
often as an act of divine worship. Homi- 
cide and suicide had not only been toler- 
ated, but had been warmly approved under- 
given conditions. Was there an absolute 
and fixed moral order or was there not! 
If there was, it would have to get its 
sanction from a cause outside itself, In- 
trinsically, its existence could not be 
proved. The beauty of virtue did not 
make virtue moral, for many things were 
beautiful that could not pass for moral 
The sympathy prompting virtue, the bod- 
ily affections ensuing from its neglect, 
were as vain as beauty in showing its 
moral feature, for these were wholly acci- 
dental to it. The only cause sufficient to 
establish and sanction a moral standard 
would have to be superior to sentiment and 
fancy, superior to reason itself, and would 
have to be known in other ways than by 
empty speculation upon custom and prac- 
tice. 

The "a priori'' method was the only one 
admissible, from the nature of the case, in 
exploring, establishing, or analyzing the 
origins of morality. That much granted, 
the problem resolved itself into this: Is 

93 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



there a personal God with Whom mankind 
enjoys vital relations? If there is, moral- 
ity will follow inevitably from these rela- 
tions, or from any law issuing from the di- 
vine intelligence; whereas, if there is not, 
there can never be the shadow of morality 
among men. "What is called morality will 
then be robbed of its binding force, and be 
reduced, — as the Modernists actually re- 
duce it, — to the level of an optional and 
arbitrary etiquette. 

No claim was made upon revelation when 
the problem was resolved affirmatively. 
Faith was wholly unnecessary to prove 
either the existence of God, His personal 
character, or the reality of the providence 
He exercises over mankind. Reason itself, 
when unbiased by falsity or unclouded by 
vice, could go so far. But then there fol- 
lowed, as a necessary consequence, the ex- 
istence of an eternal law to which human 
acts should be attuned. It was only by 
comparison with this law that they became 
endowed with moral value. Whatever was 
in accordance with the eternal law was 
moral; whatever was contrary to it was 
immoral. Eeason was appealed to as a 
norm of moral action only in so far as it 
was instructed and formed after this di- 



94 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES 



vine ideal. Then only might it be a safe 
guide. 

Needless to say, none but morality of 
this sort could be stable, true, and real. 
The natural law, contained in but not origi- 
nating with the Decalogue, at once became 
binding. It had been written by the Al- 
mighty on the fleshy tablets of the heart 
long ages before the Sinaitic tables had 
been carved. Without this law, reason 
might dictate rules of eight human con- 
duct, but not rules of moral conduct. With 
this law it might develop a moral code as 
time went on and its perception grew 
keener. This it actually did, and thereby 
made man the noble creature he now is. 

V. 

Such is the doctrine held up to scorn 
and mockery by our contemporaries. It 
is not, they say, what it pretends to be, for 
" the notion that there is anything fun- 
damentally correct implies the existence 
of a standard outside and above usage, and 
no such standard exists." Why does it not 
exist? Because, they insist, God does not 
exist, or, if He does, He takes no care 
about us. 

But we know that God does exist. Apart 

95 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



from the more than convincing proofs of 
philosophy, our faith, which is the guar- 
dian of morality, tells us it is in Him "we 
live, move, and have our being." " He 
made us and not we ourselves," He pre- 
serves us and keeps aglow the spark of life 
still burning in our breasts. Religion 
binds us to Him, and by its brightness il- 
lumines the path along which we tread. 
Religion is the safeguard of morality, and 
although morality is independent of re- 
ligion by nature, still it cannot long sub- 
sist without it in truth. 

The Reformation cry was: " Be spir- 
itual, adore God in spirit and in truth." 
The Church replied: " In visible action, 
too, for faith or spiritual worship without 
works is dead." The Reformers would 
not listen. To-day their children show 
how much at fault they were. Religion 
has been sacrificed and morality is at low 
ebb. Upon easy change of religion (see 
prop. 2) ensues easy change of wives 
(prop. 8), and then a tide of crime is let 
loose upon the world (see prop. 6-10). 
Men learn to economize in offspring, for 
on the broad stairways open between the 
social levels, children turn out to be en- 
cumbrances. It is no longer celibacy that 

96 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES 



is to blame. It is Humanitarianism de- 
humanized ! 

Is it any wonder that our present Pon- 
tiff grew alarmed at the lowering clouds 
of Modernistic night ? Realizing that his 
first and foremost duty was the sanctifica- 
tion of souls and the averting of spiritual 
harm, he braved, by salutary decrees, the 
calumnies and ridicule of perishing unbe- 
lievers in order to rescue from exterior 
darkness the souls confided to his care. 
Too clearly did he foresee that the errors 
of philosophy to-day would be the sins of 
the philosophers to-morrow, and he could 
not bring himself to believe that he would 
be faithful to his trust were he to allow 
those errors to pass unnoticed. 

"What are we Catholics doing in face of 
this propaganda of evil? Are we spread- 
ing the light as eagerly and effectively as 
our enemies are diffusing darkness? If 
humanitarian philosophers and scientists 
are perverting popular ideas through the 
magazines and public lectures, pseudo-sci- 
ence, the stage, the novel, and the daily 
newspapers, their pernicious activities can 
only be counteracted by Catholic philoso- 
phers and scientists, equally well trained, 
who will work through these same chan- 
nels and so reach the popular mind. Now 

97 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



if university training imparts a certain 
prestige to the propagators of falsehood, 
it, too, "will give a like prestige to the dis- 
seminators of truth. For that reason it 
has been asked why Catholics do not try to 
secure chairs in State or other universi- 
ties, why they do not seek for the endow- 
ment of Catholic universities side by side 
with those which profess to be non-denomi- 
national, but which are rather, in teaching 
and in spirit, adverse and anti- Catholic? 
Both of these systems are being carried 
out successfully in certain parts of Europe. 
But to come nearer home, why is not the 
Catholic University of America patronized 
and supported as it so richly deserves? 
There is a manifest and lamentable in- 
difference on the part of Catholics, a 
lack of sympathy and confidence in the 
noble purpose and work of the Univer- 
sity. They seem not to realize that 
they are thus neglecting their highest 
spiritual and intellectual interests and 
those of their children. They apparently 
ignore the self-imposing and important 
truth that only Catholic institutions of 
learning can counteract the pernicious 
effects that inevitably follow from the so- 
called higher training given in non-Cath- 
olic colleges and universities. 

98 



HISTORY OF THE DOGMA OF THE 
IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. 

The dogma of the Immaculate Concep- 
tion has many phases. At the outset it 
bears the appearance of a 66 modern " doc- 
trine, since it has but recently been defined. 
For that reason it seems to imperil the 
oneness and infallibility of the Church 
which defined it. 

It is sufficiently manifest that if any 
teaching body originate an article of be- 
lief, change substantially an accepted 
article, or abolish an old one, it thereupon 
forfeits its title to unity of doctrine. Fur- 
thermore, since truth is one and unchange- 
able at all times, such a body proves itself 
fallible, defective, and consequently with- 
out authority. It may not, therefore, claim 
for itself divine institution. Of such an 
establishment Christ did not make Himself 
the author when He empowered and bade 
His apostles to " teach all nations," prom- 
ising that He would remain with them 
" all days, even to the consummation of 
the world." (Matt, xxviii. 20.) " The Son 

99 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



of God, Jesus Christ . . . was not, ' It is 9 
and ' It is not ' but 6 It is,' was in Him." 
(2 Cor. i. 19.) If, then, the Immaculate 
Conception is an entirely new dogma or 
wholly a nineteenth century invention, the 
authority of the Catholic Church is im- 
peached, and men must look elsewhere for 
the Eock of Salvation according to the in- 
junction of St. Paul: " though we or an 
angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you 
besides that which we have preached to 
you, let him be anathema." (Gal. i. 8.) 

Another interesting feature of the Im- 
maculate Conception is that it is not con- 
tained expressly in Sacred Scripture. To 
enhance this difficulty — for it is a grievous 
difficulty in the way of its acceptance by 
non-Catholics — the law of original sin is 
set down in such clear, forceful terms by 
St. Paul as to warrant the denial of any 
exception to it, in one who chooses to ac- 
cept the Scriptures as the sole rule of faith. 
Our knowledge of this mystery assumes 
that tradition must go hand in hand with 
the sacred writings, and that the Catholic 
Church is the guardian and interpreter of 
both. 

We need not linger on these prelimi- 
naries. A brief history of the dogma will 

ioo 



IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 



reveal that it is by no means an invention, 
but rather an ancient teaching coeval with 
the Church, and in perfect harmony with 
other apostolic traditions. 

EL 

For several centuries the Immaculate 
Conception, as an object of belief, was in 
what might properly be styled an embry- 
onic state ; that is to say, it was implied in 
other revealed truths which were openly 
professed. 

It ought not to be a source of wonder- 
ment that this teaching, which redounds 
so much to the glory of Mary, was not ex- 
plicitly believed from the beginning. This 
fact serves only to illustrate that God, 
Who had designed His Church for the 
sanctification and eternal welfare of men, 
chose to make it in some degree like hu- 
man institutions. It was, indeed, never to 
exceed the margins of truth and righteous- 
ness, yet it was to pass through certain 
evolutions and developments of teaching, 
legislation and disciplinary enactments to 
a more perfect state. Many dogmas were 
held explicitly in the Church's infancy, 
such as the divinity of Christ, the necessity 
of baptism, the Eeal Presence of our 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



Lord in the Holy Eucharist, and the like, 
but others were not so well understood, 
and these Christ deposited with His 
Church to be expounded and made clear by 
her in future ages. To this class of truths 
belongs the mystery of the Immaculate 
Conception. 

The representatives and exponents of 
the Church's beliefs in early ages were the 
Apologists and Fathers. That their idea 
of Mary was that of a sinless creature, 
is evinced from their unanimity in pro- 
nouncing her "most innocent, most 
pure, inviolate, undefiled, immaculate, the 
daughter of life, the new and sacred leaven 
made perfect unto God." So deep was St. 
Augustine's appreciation of Mary's sanc- 
tity that he declared in his work ' ' On Na- 
ture and Grace " that he wished never to 
mention her in connection with sin. Sts. 
Ephrem and Ambrose, contemporaries of 
St. Augustine, were equally as pointed. 
" In thee, Lord," exclaimed the former, 
"there is no stain, and thy mother is with- 
out spot," while the latter writes: " The 
Virgin Mary was not defiled by any blem- 
ish of sin." (Comm. Ps. cxviii.) Such 
epithets and eulogies were meaningless, 
did they not signify freedom from origi- 

102 



IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 



nal not less than from actual sin. How- 
ever, they do not express clearly at what 
moment the freedom began. 

It was particularly on the feasts of the 
Nativity and Motherhood of the Blessed 
Virgin that the Fathers first extolled the 
august privilege of her Conception, and 
proclaimed loudly and unmistakably that 
never for a moment was the Holy Spirit 
absent from her soul. Thus was the way 
paved towards the institution of the feast 
of the Conception which inaugurated the 
second period in the history of the dogma. 

m. 

Andrew of Crete chronicled the cele- 
bration of this festival in the Greek 
Church as early as the year 675. The 
truthfulness of this annal is borne out 
by compilations of sermons still ex- 
tant, which were composed for the occa- 
sion during the 8th, 9th, and 10th cen- 
turies. From Greece the devotion made 
headway throughout Sicily and thence to 
Naples. In the latter place a marble tablet 
of the ninth century still commemorates the 
keeping of the feast on December 9. 

It is recorded that the festival was ob- 
served at Rome in the Oriental monastery 

103 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



of S. Saba, near the Aventine Hill, early in 
the twelfth centnry. At that time (1115), a 
nephew of St. Anselm, also named Anselm, 
was abbot. He fostered piously the cult 
which flourished under his rule and, when 
he was afterwards transferred to the ab- 
bacy of Edmundburgh (1121), and elevated 
to the Episcopal See of London (1138), he 
labored zealously and efficiently to pro- 
mote in England the devotion which he 
found already there established (viz., since 
1110). His chief act in this regard was 
the institution of the feast of the Concep- 
tion. 

It was perhaps owing to Anselm 's re- 
peated missions to Normandy (1115 and 
1119) as Apostolic Legate that the devo- 
tion took root in that country. From Nor- 
mandy the pious movement passed into 
France, where it grew so rapidly that, by 
the year 1154, the entire Christian popu- 
lace of the nation patronized it. It was at 
this juncture that St. Bernard sent his 
celebrated epistle to Lyons in which he se- 
verely censured the institution of the feast 
in that city as an " innovation." Many 
theologians strive to excuse this action of 
the Mellifluous Doctor by maintaining that 
its author failed to grasp the meaning of 

104 



IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 



the mystery in its proper light. They 
argue also that he would not have dis- 
played such unwonted hostility if the can- 
ons concerned had procured the approval 
of the Holy See. However this may be, the 
cult spread subsequently through Ger- 
many, Spain, and the rest of Europe. 

Eome manifested its proverbial tardi- 
ness in officially advocating the devotion. 
It made no effort to check its progress and 
expansion, nor did it display opposition to 
the observance of the festival. It was 
merely waiting to learn the mind of the 
Holy Ghost before sealing with its positive 
approbation a universal impulse which 
could not have sprung but from God. 

IV. 

Meanwhile the spirit of controversy was 
waxing warm in the schools. "Whatever 
may have been the intention of St. Ber- 
nard in writing the epistle referred to, it 
is an historical fact that by it he placed a 
temporary damper on the growth of the 
devotion, and furnished its opponents with 
efficient weapons. His untoward influence 
must have been felt the more because he 
was otherwise so unbounded and effusive 
in his praises of Mary. 

100 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



St. Bernard and other representative 
Catholic doctors of the medieval period 
seemed to have apprehended the law of 
original sin as being so stringent and uni- 
versal that absolutely no one who had been 
endowed with existence by human progeni- 
tors, could escape its yoke. In the case of 
our divine Saviour alone, it appeared to 
them, was the curse of Eden totally sus- 
pended, or, more properly, removed, and 
this was by reason of his miraculous hu- 
man origin as well as His divinity. Hence 
Blessed Albert the Great queries ("Missus 
est")? " Why was not at least one man 
(besides the Saviour) conceived without 
original sin?" and he answers that this 
would be " impossible, unless such a one 
were conceived of a virgin. 9 9 Mary, there- 
fore, like others needed redemption. 
Wherefore she was at one time, albeit for 
the shortest instant, offensive to Jier Crea- 
tor. Thus reasoned the keenest minds, 
notably Peter Lombard and Hugh of St. 
Victor. 

St. Anselm has been adduced both as 
favoring and opposing the dogma. The 
latter opinion is more likely. True, he 
claimed as befitting our Lady, a purity 
than which " none greater is intelligible 

106 



IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 



in a creature " (" De Conceptione Vir- 
ginali but lie did not distinctly apply 
these words to the first moment of her ex- 
istence. He and his contemporaries fully 
appreciated the difficulties which sur- 
rounded them and, as they viewed the 
earnest and warming devotion of the faith- 
ful to the mystery which they could not 
explain, they paused. They were involved 
in deep perplexity. They failed to grasp 
the truth that God Who sanctifies by 
cleansing from the guilt of sin contracted, 
can also sanctify by preventing the con- 
traction or inheritance of guilt. Conse- 
quently they saw not that redemption is 
necessary in a more excellent degree for 
the latter benefit than for the former. 

St. Bonaventure approached the ques- 
tion more closely than any of his prede- 
cessors, yet even he failed to answer it con- 
clusively. However, while his reason was 
deluged with the conflicting arguments 
hurled about it in the Paris University and 
other seats of learning, he seemed to recog- 
nize the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking 
in the simple and pious ejaculations of the 
faithful. Accordingly, when he was made 
Minister General of his Order, he ap- 
proved of the observance of a feast in 

107 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



honor of the Conception throughout its 
rank and file. To this he might also have 
been moved by the commendation which 
the Blessed Virgin herself was said to have 
given to the festival, or by the revelation 
made to Helsinus, an English Abbot, about 
the year 1066. 

The mind of St. Thomas Aquinas, as ex- 
pressed in his works, has given rise to 
prolonged and animated controversy. The 
voluminous commentaries written in the 
Saint's defense would very likely have 
been diminished by more than half if in 
a single passage he had stated unequivo- 
cally that the most holy Mother of God 
had been conceived immaculate; but 
neither this assertion nor any equivalent 
of it proceeded from his pen. 

The scholar who considers St. Thomas 
in his peculiar medieval environment is 
drawn to compare his writings with those 
of his master, Blessed Albert the Great 
and of Peter Lombard. On yielding to the 
attraction, he will find it hard to convince 
himself that the Angelic Doctor had not 
imbibed their views. In this, as in other 
matters, St. Thomas speaks with greater 
lucidity than many of his commentators. 
There is no doubt that for him the Blessed 

xoS 



IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 



Virgin was sanctified in the womb, as were 
the prophet Jeremias and St. John the 
Baptist. The precise moment of the prod- 
igy escaped him, but it was after the in- 
fusion of the rational soul, and not before. 
Confronted by the feast of the Conception, 
which evidently presupposed a more defi- 
nite belief, he maintained that it was kk tol- 
erated" by the Church, but not approved. 
In fact, he argues that Mary's sanctifica- 
tion could not have occurred, — as we to- 
day believe, — at the very instant of con- 
ception, for then, Mary would not have 
needed redemption. Christ died for her, 
as well as for all men — so it is revealed — 
she must, therefore, have incurred the 
stain of original sin at least for a short 
interval. 

This line of reasoning is developed at 
length in the third part of the Summa 
Theologica, question XXVII, and it har- 
monizes so perfectly with the express and 
pointed denial of the Immaculate Concep- 
tion in the Saint's commentaries on the 
third Book of the Sentences that the ver- 
dict — at least of the present writer — must 
be far different from what he would desire. 

In treating of the miraculous sanctifi- 
cation of Jeremias and St. John the Bap- 

109 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



tist, St. Thomas deems it no irreverence to 
quote St. Augustine's doubts as to its real- 
ity (ibid., XXVII, II), and then discard 
them uncompromisingly because they are 
obviously at variance with the Inspired 
Word. Similarly would he to-day, if he 
could but speak to us from on high, sub- 
mit to have the obvious sense of his own 
words weighed in the balance with the 
Church's infallible decisions. 

Cardinal Cajetan de Vio, the recognized 
leader among the expositors of St. Thomas, 
whose commentaries are now reappearing 
with Pontifical approval in the scholarly 
"Leonine Edition," was so far from be- 
lieving the Angel of the Schools a sup- 
porter of the Immaculate Conception that 
he styled belief in the mystery itself a 
sheer "delirium" affecting pious souls. 
Of course, Cajetan was mistaken in this 
last assertion. Like St. Jerome, he said 
many things he would have preferred to 
leave unsaid, could he have foreseen their 
effect on future ages. But there are spots, 
even on the sun — big spots, too, because 
the sun is vast — yet the sun is so brilliant 
that they cannot be detected with the 
naked eye. 

Thus it is with master-minds ; thus with 
no 



IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 



the saints. St. Thomas Aquinas has de- 
served so highly of the Church and science 
that his glory will increase with the ages, 
like that of St. Augustine; and, just as 
St. Augustine enjoys an honor which 
causes many of his admirers to forget he 
wrote a book of Extractions before his 
death, so will St. Thomas ever merit a 
meed of highest praise for the immeasur- 
able good he did, and freedom from hu- 
man censure for not having been elected 
by God a prophet. The defined dogma of 
original sin seemed to him to be jeop- 
ardized by the apparently contrary and 
undefined belief in the Immaculate Con- 
ception. They who try to represent the 
Saint as thinking otherwise are in reality 
robbing him of the very conservatism 
which they prize so much in themselves. 

It was reserved for Duns Scotus 
(1265[?]-1308[?]) to bring order out of 
confusion. He was the first to reconcile 
the systems of the schools with the effer- 
vescent devotion of the populace. This 
erudite Franciscan maintained that Mary, 
although naturally fated to incur the 
guilt of original sin, was by the special 
intervention of Divine Providence, pre- 
served intact. This unspottedness was 

in 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



secured to her, not before her soul 
had been infused into her body, nor 
even a moment afterwards, as many had 
ventured, but at the very instant of her 
animation or conception. "With such con- 
summate skill, deep penetration, and nice 
discernment did Scotus defend his thesis, 
that it was thereupon incorporated into 
the creed of the University. Thenceforth 
no one was admitted to the degree of 
Master at Paris, who did not bind himself 
by oath to defend the Immaculate Concep- 
tion until death. Scotus, as a reward, was 
thrice adorned with the title of " Subtle 
Doctor," viz., by the universities of Paris 
and Cologne, which were the leading 
strongholds of Catholic learning in 
Europe, and by the reigning Supreme 
Pontiff. These last data are given us by 
Cavellus (14th century), whose authority 
as to these particulars all do not accept. 
At any rate, the title of " Subtle Doctor " 
has clung to Scotus, as has also that of 
66 Herald of the Immaculate Conception. " 

V. 

It is needless to say that continued dis- 
cussions in the schools called forth several 
acts of the Holy See, and it is from these 

112 



IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 



acts that the official attitude of the Church 
is to be learned. 

The Council of Basle (15th century) 
seems to have comprehended the dogma 
as we now understand it, but it lacked the 
authority to define it. Pope Sixtus IV 
(1471-1484), approved of an office of the 
Immaculate Conception in which the vic- 
tory of Scotus is commemorated. He also 
enriched the pious observance of the feast 
with indulgences, and rebuked all oppo- 
nents of the dogma. The Council of Trent 
(1545-1563) renewed and confirmed the 
last-named action of Sixtus and, after hav- 
ing explained the Church's tenets regard- 
ing the racial sin, it declared that ' ' it was 
not its intention to embrace the blessed and 
immaculate Virgin Mary, Mother of God" 
in its decree. (Sess. v, 5.) Pope St. Pius 
V (1566-1572) inserted the feast in the 
Eoman calendar and breviary, although 
he suppressed the word " Immaculate " 
from the name of the festival and pre- 
scribed the office of the Nativity B. V. M. 
for its celebration. St. Pius also con- 
demned Michael Baius for teaching that 
"no one except Christ was free from origi- 
nal sin," and that 66 the Blessed Virgin 
died on account of sin contracted from 



113 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 

Adam." (Prop. 73.) He likewise silenced 
popular controversy over the subject. 
Paul V (1605-1621) forbade the doctrine 
to be publicly impugned, and Gregory XV 
(1621-1623), Paul's successor, extended 
this prohibition to private discussions. The 
latter Pontiff, however, exempted the 
Feiaes Preachers from this restriction. 
(Brief, "Eximii".) Towards the middle 
of the 17th century Pope Alexander VII 
(1655-1667) expounded the dogma in al- 
most the same phraseology as that used by 
Pius IX in his famous definition. Yet 
Alexander refrained from issuing a defini- 
tion and contented himself with renewing 
the Constitutions of Sixtus IV. It was 
Pope Clement IX (1700-1721) who first 
ordered the feast of the Conception to be 
kept throughout the universal Church. It 
is pertinent to note that Pius VII granted 
the Franciscans a special preface for the 
Mass of the feast in the year 1806, which 
preface was later conceded to the archdio- 
cese of Seville (1834), to the Dominican 
Order (1843), and finally to the rest of the 
Latin Church. The invocation, ' 6 Queen 
conceived without original sin," was in- 
serted in the Litany of Loretto in 1839 by 
Gregory XVI. 

114 



IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 



Thus, however impetuous the dispu- 
tants in the schools may have become, the 
Church herself viewed the doctrine calmly 
and deliberately. It never once censured 
either the teaching or any of its defend- 
ers. On the contrary, it gradually laid 
strictures on its opponents as a class, and 
for several centuries assisted notably in 
diffusing a knowledge of the mystery and 
in fostering devotion towards it. Borrow- 
ing the words of Pope Pius IX: " The 
Church of Rome has held nothing dearer 
than the declaration, defence, furtherance, 
and upholding of the Immaculate Concep- 
tion in the most persuasive terms." 

VI. 

In this manner the second period was 
drawing to a close. The time was getting 
ripe for a definition. The Immaculate Con- 
ception had not as yet been made an ar- 
ticle of faith. It was somewhat like the 
mystery of the Assumption B. V. M. in our 
day. Men might not deny it with impunity, 
yet they might do so and escape the brand 
of " heretic." Few there were, however, 
who displayed strong aversion for the doc- 
trine. Some found greater difficulties in it 
than others, but all were ready to bow their 

115 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



heads in reverent submission as soon as 
Peter would speak. The vast majority 
were loudly clamoring for a decision. 

These circumstances were, so to speak, 
peculiarly distinctive of the Immaculate 
Conception. Other doctrines had been de- 
fined in the Church at various times, but 
only on account of heresies that had arisen 
concerning them. Eelative to this dogma 
there was no heresy, but merely a misti- 
ness which obscured the truth to a few, 
but which awaited only the bright and radi- 
ant light of the Vatican to dispel it. 

Then began the third stage in the dog- 
ma's history. After repeated and untir- 
ing solicitations on the part of Christian 
kings and rulers, the hierarchy, and the 
faithful at large, and after having invoked 
the light and guidance of the Holy Spirit 
by fasting and both public and private 
prayers, Pope Pius IX saw fit to promul- 
gate on December 10, 1854, the following 
decree : 

" To the honor of the Holy and Undi- 
vided Trinity, for the grace and adorn- 
ment of the Virgin Mother of God, for the 
exaltation of the Catholic faith, and the in- 
crease of the Christian religion, by the 
authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the 
. 116 



IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 



Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and Our 
Own, We declare, pronounce, and define 
that the teaching which holds that the 
Blessed Virgin Mary was by a singular 
grace and privilege of Almighty God, in 
virtue of the merits of Christ Jesus, the 
Saviour of the human race, preserved free 
from every taint of original sin, at the first 
moment of her Conception, has been re- 
vealed by God, and is therefore strongly 
and constantly to be believed by all the 
faithful. ' ' (Bull, ' 6 Ineffabilis. ") 

The cause was finished. Since that 
proclamation the course of Catholics has 
been clear. Controversy has ceased and 
the old discussions, having lost all living 
import, form little more than materials 
for history. In that domain they are to 
stand forever as monuments to the imbe- 
cility of unaided human reason in fath- 
oming " the deep things of God. 5 ' 

In accordance with the teaching of Holy 
Church, all Catholics now believe and main- 
tain unflinchingly that our Blessed Mother 
was never for an instant under the do- 
minion of Satan. Never was her soul tar- 
nished with original guilt. At the first 
moment of its creation it was made the re- 
pository and temple of the Holy Ghost. 

117 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



It was, indeed, infused into a body subject 
to the penalties of sin, to sorrow, infirmity, 
suffering and death, but it had been timely 
rescued from the slightest moral deformity 
and had been made to outshine the angels 
in the brilliancy of its purity. 

This ennoblement of Mary was due to 
her Divine Son's future merits. Christ 
was to redeem mankind, and Mary was to 
be His helper, His co-operatrix, His 
Mother. She then should be the first to 
experience the kindly influence of His 
deserts. She, who would naturally have 
been a doomed and helpless daughter of 
Eve, should first bask in the brightness of 
His vivifying rays. Jesus, therefore, Who 
was the Sun of Justice, illumined Mary, the 
Mirror of Justice, from the first moment 
of her existence. 

This benefit was a peculiar prerogative, 
' 6 a singular grace and privilege. ' ' In its 
bestowal, our heavenly Father deigned to 
regard the soul of His beloved Spouse as 
already purchased by the Precious Blood 
of His Son, notwithstanding the fact that 
that Blood had not as yet been shed. 

Such is the dogma which all Catholics 
proudly and openly profess, not on ac- 
count of its plausibility or intrinsic rea- 

1x8 



IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 



sons, but because it " has been revealed 
by God." Here it must be called to mind 
that the revelation was not simultaneous 
with the definition, as some non-Catholics 
understand the Church to teach. It was 
made two decades of centuries ago. It was 
not always so clear and distinct as other 
revelations, yet it was confided to an un- 
erring Church which was ultimately to 
identify it and extricate it from the mass 
of deposited dogma. 

VII. 

The difficulties advanced at the begin- 
ning of this paper must ere now have van- 
ished from the minds of intelligent read- 
ers. The Catholic Church in defining the 
Immaculate Conception, the infallibility 
of the Pope, transubstantiation, or any 
other dogma, does not originate, change, 
or reject an article of faith, or reform its 
code of truth. It merely gives evidence of 
its sound and healthful vitality in discern- 
ing under divine guidance what has already 
been revealed, and what has not. Just as 
its Divine Founder, although He knew all 
things from the beginning, " advanced in 
wisdom, and age, and grace with God and 
men," (Luke ii. 52), so the Church, al- 

119 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



though possessed of all its dogmas at the 
date of its birth, passes through the 
periods of infancy, youth, and manhood, 
showing at each stage new signs of growth, 
development and independence, by the evo- 
lution and confirmation of its dogmas not 
less than those of its legislation. 

Nor should it be alleged with reference 
to the Immaculate Conception, that tradi- 
tion, to which appeal is made, is in conflict 
with Sacred Scripture, since St. Paul ex- 
tends the ban of sin to all men, whereas 
tradition exempts the Blessed Virgin. St. 
Paul merely utters a positive law which 
depends wholly upon the will of God for its 
execution. God can, therefore, if He 
chooses, grant dispensations from such a 
law without abolishing it. It is to the 
actual concession of a dispensation or 
privilege of this kind that tradition attests. 
From this it is obvious that the Scriptures 
speak truthfully and tradition speaks 
truthfully. The latter supplements but 
does not contradict the former. 

Yet the Bible is not wholly silent about 
our Lady's prerogative. In the book of 
Genesis (iii. 15). we find a prediction of it 
in those " enmities " which God was to 
place between the woman and the serpent, 

120 



IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 



and in the crushing of the serpent's head. 
Again, the Archangel's address to Mary, 
declaring that she was " full of grace " 
(Luke i. 28), is pertinent, but these texts 
are not demonstrative and are fully under- 
stood only when viewed in the light of the 
definition. 

Xot a few Catholics survive who are able 
to recall the universal joy which followed 
upon the solemn proclamation of the Im- 
maculate Conception. Fain do we join with 
these in congratulating our Blessed Mother 
who now beams with undimmed, unwonted 
splendor. Mary's internal happiness, it 
is true, has not been increased, but her ex- 
ternal glory has been enhanced. Men know 
her better and love her more. 6 ' Hail full 
of grace," they jubilantly salute her — 
" full," with a plentitude of benediction 
which their minds cannot grasp. Hail, 
Conqueror of Satan and Morning Star! 
Hail, Tower of David in which sinners take 
refuge! Hail, Eestorer of our liberties 
and our inheritance, our Heavenly Queen! 

" Queen, conceived without original sin, 
pray for us who have recourse to thee." 



121 



AMBITION. 



In a green and shaded woodland 

Crystal doth a streamlet flow. 
None among God's works more guileless, 

None the soul doth ravish so. 
Waters clearer, purer, sweeter 

Ne'er more cheerily did go. 
'Tis the voice of God who calls them. 

Fair allegiance Him they show. 

Happy is the unnamed brooklet 

As it murmurs soft and low, 
Kissing its enchanting borders, 

Blithesome as the zephyrs blow. 
Health, refreshment, joy abundant, 

Glad it doth on all bestow 
Who beside it, worn or weary, 

Rest from earth's toils, cares, and woe. 

Heaven's winged fondlings gaily 

Chirping, in its ripples play. 
Forest's timid bosom darlings 

Frolic near it day by day. 
Earth-bedecking flow'rs and mosses 

Mirrored, joy along its way. 
Sun and moon and starry courses 

Peep and hear its mystic lay. 

122 



AMBITION 



Would that thus throughout the ages 

Humble, lowly, it might stay, 
"Wholesome, innocent, and guileless, 

Leading old and young to pray ! 
But a dream of glory lures it 

And beneath ambition's sway, 
Fame and honor rare it covets, — 

Swift it runs and speeds the day. 

In its merry, dancing progress 
Younger streamlets haste to greet 

One, of them so close a likeness, 
Charmed they smile where'er they meet. 

Straight each fresher stream is welcomed, 
Then caressed, and finds it sweet 

To new love to be thus wedded- 
Caught in fortune's fair deceit. 

Thus, the modest brook expanding, 

Swelling onwards broad and deep, 
Proud, its moth 'ring banks abandons, 

They no more safe guard can keep 
O'er its dizzy, dashing flurries, 

Truly, it cloth make them weep. 
Soft they stoop their moistened eyelids — 

Quick it drowns them. Death's their 
sleep. 

123 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



Once beyond the sombre woodland, 

With th' impris'ning banks downtrod, 
Liberty becks back restriction, 

Wanton license rules as God. 
Brook no more : a river daring 

Now in haughtiness doth nod 
When adventurer salutes it 

Or the weary near it plod. 

Proud, the tossing waters wander, 

Spread they wide across the plain. 
Man must see them. All must know them, 

Now they have achieved a name. 
Freshets fierce and floods they sow there 

Helped by mountains oft of rain 
Crashing on their turgid bosom, 

Eife with violent acclaim. 

Ever heaving, roaring, rolling, — 

Deaf'ning mass of thunderpeals! 
Trees uprooted, homes demolished, — 

Cruel stream ! No sting it feels. 
Self-reproach is dead within it, 

And no bosom-stream reveals 
What keen anguish it doth suffer 

As in whirlpools deep it reels. 



"On to glory, bright fame's luster, — 
Hail! majestic arches, hail! 

124 



AMBITION 



I, the Eiver Grand, salute yon, 

Fall ! Make way ! 'Tis X '11 prevail ! 

None my force hath yet defeated. 
Leaflike shook the wind-fraught sail, 

E'en the giant oak did shudder, 
As I merged them in my trail. ' ? 

"Now entomb 'd they lie and, lusty, 

I do bleed them in my breast. 
Covet you to share their sorrows? 

Then withstand me at your best ! 
Weaker foe than I accosted 

Victim plumed with nobler crest — 
Passing, he did smite and make him 

Eue the day he dreamt of rest." 

Crashed the bridge's span of arches 

Eeedlike, caught in hostile grasp. 
Age and beauty had renowned them 

Nor had gruesome wintry blast 
Distanced fair and shrewd observers 

Who had flocked in numbers vast, 
Art and grandeur rare to witness 

In them. Such was ne'er surpassed. 

Dazed and ruined now the arches 
Woe and dire affliction drink. 

Bitter is their cup of sorrow — 
Theirs no more the shores to link, 
125 



MESSAGES OF TRUTH 



Passage high, and safe, and steady, 
Sure to give from brink to brink. 

Doomed and helpless, they lament it, 
Sad, they shriek, and shrieking sink. 

Thus the Eiver Grand doth triumph. 

Conq'ring foe he nowhere fears. 
Valiant, potent, hardened, heartless, 

Never doth he list to tears. 
Throbbing breast he stifles, crushes, 

Naught of frailer kind appears 
Apt to soften his ambition. 

Iron-clad, he flouts and jeers. 

Seething, surging, tearing onwards — 

Sure, no hardship is too great. 
Working ruin and destruction, — 

Mostly thus doth fame create. 
What if forest's stream hath perish 'd, 

Innocence hath lost, to sate 
Fiercest greed of wildest passion! 

Is not that the law of fate? 

Virtue ne'er exists with greatness 
Sought in wild ambition's train. 

Well the Eiver Grand doth know it — 
Virtue, then, and grace he fain 

Spurns with bitterest disapproval. 
Only if he were insane, 
126 



AMBITION 



Could lie heartily embrace them. 
Now, too low, he'd stoop from fame! 

Comes at length the fatal moment 

When the river's life doth wane, 
Desolation it hath nurtured, — 

Quick and wild in frenzied strain, 
Now the monster-child doth gripe it. 

Eav'ning yawns the mighty main 
Prey so rich to grind and swallow, — 

Die, ambition, with thy name ! 




127 



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